


A Taste of Myrrh

by imsorryimlate



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Religious, Angst, Fashion & Couture, Feelings, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Priest Kink, Religious Discussion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sexual Content, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2018-12-06 21:22:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 43,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11609211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsorryimlate/pseuds/imsorryimlate
Summary: “… Should I be calling you ‘father’?” Dan asked and regretted the words as soon as they had left his mouth.Phil smiled.“You can, if you want.”There was something about the way he said it that made Dan feel hot all over.Or: Dan falls in love with Phil, who happens to be a celibate priest. Great.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I hope you will enjoy my fic, but first a few notes:  
> 1\. I am a Christian, so I kind of know what I'm talking about, but I'm not Anglican so if there are any inaccuracies I apologise. I tried doing as much research as possible.  
> 2\. I know nothing about fashion and again, I apologise for any mistakes.  
> 3\. This fic was inspired by [this tumblr post.](http://imsorryimlate.tumblr.com/post/163406227433/lemonsharks-classicstarlite-actualmodel) It was supposed to be a oneshot, then it spiralled out of control and is now a monster of 42k. This fic is finished, by the way, but it is still being beta'd, so the chapters will come up during the next few weeks.  
> 4\. Speaking of beta, I could not have written this fic at all without my wonderful beta [Lina.](https://twitter.com/_bunnylester_) Thank you, my friend.
> 
> I think that's it. Now enjoy!

_“My heart talks about nothing but you.”  
– Albert Camus_

* * *

 

When Dan moved into his tiny apartment in the outskirts of London, the previous owner had left behind a few things. Most of them were nasty, like the mousetrap that almost snipped his toes or a mouldy shower curtain in the bathroom. Few things were nice. But by far, the best thing they had left behind was the piano. It was old and out of tune, but Dan kept it (and tried to play it, but it sounded horrible). Despite his bad luck with piano teachers, the dream to actually be able to play still burned within him. It only took him a couple of months to decide to start taking lessons again. He refused to call it a New Year’s resolution, because it wasn’t. It just happened to coincide with the beginning of the new year. So, he got his piano tuned and started looking for a teacher.

It turned out there were quite a lot of inexpensive freelance piano teachers in the area, but it still took some time for Dan to find someone he liked. He stayed wary of anyone over the age of 50 (he was allowed to make that discrimination), and eventually he found Frances, who was only a couple of years older than him.

Dan was sweating slightly the first time he went to her house for a lesson, his damp finger leaving a mark on the doorbell button. He really wanted it to work out this time. The door opened to reveal a small woman dressed in raggy clothes and a facial expression that looked like she was on her way to her own funeral. Oh no.

“Hi, I’m Dan,” he said, then added hastily, “Howell.”

“Welcome,” Frances said, her down-turned mouth turning up into a small smile. She then stepped aside and motioned for Dan to enter the house.

The house looked normal enough (although he wouldn’t know for sure until he had seen the contents of her fridge), but Frances spoke with a drawl that matched her face and gave him a bad feeling. She then turned around, looked somewhere on his face and said, “the bathroom is down the hall to the left. It’s the door with a butt painted on it,” before leading him into the lounge.

Her piano was much more beautiful than Dan’s; it was shiny black with brass details, including a pair of intricate candle holders. Any ease that had come from the revelation that Frances had a butt painted on her door (and by extension, a sense of humour) disappeared when he saw the piano. His family didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so lavish possessions tended to make him uncomfortable, especially in the hands of younger people. And he was intensely jealous.

“Nice piano,” he said awkwardly.

“Thank you.”

A chair was pulled up next to the piano stool, and Frances sat down. Dan took a seat on the miniature piano stool, towering over Frances even while sitting.

“I was thinking that we would start from the beginning. I know you said that you have played before, but it was quite a while ago, wasn’t it?”

“Um, yeah, twelve years.”

“How much do you feel like you still know?”

“Not much. I can pick melodies out by ear, but not much more.”

“Sheet music?”

“No.” He expected a sigh, but Frances just nodded.

“From the beginning, then. I was thinking we could pick songs together, if you want?”

“Uh. Yeah.” _Was that the only thing he could say?_ “That’d be great.” _Better_ _._

The bad feeling soon faded, for it became clear to him that Frances’ sullen expression was just a bad case of resting bitch face, and her voice monotone voice never really changed much. Compared to Dan’s last piano teacher, Frances was a fucking saint; she had a well of patience, encouraged Dan to “take his time” with the things he found difficult, and pointed out his mistakes in a careful manner that made him feel less like a failure. She did scold him when he didn’t study sheet music though, and he felt all of twelve years old again. After two months, he felt like he had learned more with Frances than he did with his last teacher in the same amount of time.

One day, he had just finished practicing at his old but well-tuned piano, when he noticed that a note had been pushed through the mail slot on his door. Confused (he’d already gotten his mail today), he picked it up. It was handwritten.

_‘A humble request for the pianist: Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.’_

Dan started smiling. How cool was this? He went back to the piano and played Moonlight Sonata as well as he could until his fingers ached.

Which one of his neighbours could have left the note? Dan had no idea, it could be anyone. There were 12 apartments in the building, but so far Dan had only met two of the residents; the old woman across from him whose dachshund kept escaping, and the overworked single father on the first floor whom Dan had held the door open for a few times as the man wrestled with an uncooperative stroller. Both were unlikely candidates for the note, since the old woman was almost completely deaf and the single father was, well, busy being a father.

Dan took a picture of the note and uploaded it to Instagram with the caption, ‘ _nice to know my playing is appreciated.’_ He then placed the note in his bedside drawer together with old movie tickets and a few Polaroids he’d taken together with his friends.

During his next piano lesson, he told Frances about the note and she was delighted (he could tell, somehow).

“You have admirers already, Howell,” she said in her usual dry monotone. “Soon they’ll be calling you the next Tchaikovsky and throw roses at your feet.”

“My aspirations aren’t really that high,” Dan said. He half-expected her to launch into a speech about not limiting yourself, but she just shrugged and started the lesson.

After the initial hype, he didn’t really think about the note – until it happened again. About two weeks after the first note, he found a new note on his floor after eating dinner.

_‘Thank you for taking my request :) Would you please play Photograph by Ed Sheeran?’_

Dan’s heart jumped at the thought that whoever had left the notes for him had been outside of his door recently while Dan himself had only been two meters away at his dinner table. It was all so mysterious, and he was curious. The new note was more familiar than the first one. It made him feel all soft inside. Even though he had other things to do but indulge this request, he sat down at the piano and played. Someone out there was listening to him play; it was almost intimate.

***

After unceremoniously dropping out of university, Dan asked himself, _what now?_ Well. First, he lain face down on the floor and questioned the validity of his own existence. After that, he asked himself once again, _what now?_ The answer still wasn’t clear, but he knew that he wanted to do something with fashion. Considering Dan’s atrocious fashion sense when he was in his late teens and early twenties, this surprised a lot of people, especially Dan himself. The interest had crept up on him gradually, and then one day he found himself lurking on Vogue Runway, keeping track on trends and trying to follow them – to the best of his ability anyway; he still didn’t have enough money to splurge on Alexander McQueen shirts or sweaters that looked like potato sacks.

He had started a fashion blog that he slaved over every day, and while it was slowly gaining followers, he definitely wasn’t popular enough for companies or brands to send him any free clothes. His blog had a specialty of how to follow the latest fashion trends with cheaper clothes; he worked at an H&M store in order to pay the bills and, y’know, not starve, and so he would sneak into the dressing rooms with new arrivals and model them. The blog traffic always picked up slightly when he posted pictures of himself. The clothes didn’t always look good on his awkwardly tall and slightly chubby body though, so sometimes he just took a picture of them while still on the hanger.

Today, additions to the Spring/Summer collection had arrived and it was one of those days he had managed to take pictures of himself that he thought actually looked good. It was the middle of April and the weather was warm and nice, but every now again it would switch and become windy, cold or rainy. The day had looked promising when Dan had left for work, but as he was on his way home there was a steady drizzle messing up his hair and his clothes.

In his rush to get inside his apartment and be able to change into dry clothes, he missed the note on the floor and noticed it first when he heard it crunch underfoot.

“Oh no,” he said as he peeled it from his boot. Now there was a big, muddy footprint all over it. Thankfully, the text was still legible:

_‘I’m sick :( Will you play Unintended by Muse for me?’_

Dan hung the note to dry and then quickly changed into new clothes before settling down at the piano. He knew the song by heart and had tried playing it many times before. With care, he played the soft, deep notes, and hoped his well-wishes somehow sounded through them.

This request had been more familiar in its wording than the others. When it had dried, he compared it with the other two. They were all written on the same type of lined paper, but the ink was blue on the first and last note while the middle one was written in black. This was becoming ridiculous. Dan was growing increasingly curious, and more often than he’d like to admit his thoughts wandered to the anonymous requester. Who could it be, and why didn’t they just knock on Dan’s door like a normal person? Did he even want them to?

He complained to his friend Louise about it the next day over lunch.

“You should put a note on your door that says, ‘whoever’s been requesting songs, introduce yourself’,” she said.

“What if they don’t want to introduce themselves?” Dan asked.

“’Feel free to introduce yourself’ then. Come on, you have to do something.”

“Yeah, but what if it’s a weirdo, or a pedophile.”

“You are too old to appeal to a pedophile.”

“I take offence to that,” Dan said, even if he didn’t. At twenty-six, he was finally starting to somewhat grow out of his baby face.

They both stuffed their faces with their lunch, and it was silent for a while.

“It’s kinda nice like this though,” Dan said after he had swallowed a huge bite.

“What do you mean?” Louise wondered.

Dan shrugged. It was difficult to explain.

“You know. It’s kind of neat in itself. If I find out who it is and it’s someone I don’t like, it’s gonna be all awkward and it won’t even be a nice memory anymore.”

Louise thought this over.

“I couldn’t stand not knowing,” she settled for herself.

“Yeah, same, I guess.” He might think he could, but if he was being honest with himself he’d probably die of curiosity.

“Besides, what if they are waiting for you to give them a sign that it’s okay to introduce themselves or something?” She suggested before going back to her meal.

Dan hadn’t even considered that.

The same evening, he taped a note of his own to his front door. He rewrote it twice; once because he made a typo, once because it didn’t look neat enough.

_‘to the anonymous requester: feel free to introduce yourself :)’_

Now he just had to wait.

Three days into waiting and chill and Dan was more anxious than he thought he would be. He kept reminding himself that there had been weeks between the notes, so maybe the anonymous requester hadn’t even seen his note yet. What if they had seen the note though, and just didn’t want to meet him? Then he thought of the possibility that the anonymous requester had knocked on his door while he was at work and not received an answer and he had a minor heart attack.

After a week, Dan felt self-conscious about the note since everyone on this floor had probably seen it, and he decided to take it down. His tendency for procrastination was a blessing for once, because two days after he had decided to take down the note and failed to do so, there was a knock on the door. Dan, who’d been sitting in only a shirt and messed around with the theme on his blog (should it be more professional? More personal?), scrambled to open the door while squeezing into his jeans. He zipped up, and then took a deep breath before opening. _This was it_.

As he swung the door open, Dan came face to face with a black-haired man around his own age.

“Um, hi?” Dan asked.

The man smiled. He looked nervous.

“Hi. I’m the –“, he pointed at the door, “anonymous requester.”

“Oh, yes, hi. Uh, come in, please.”

The man stepped into his hallway, Dan closed the door and then they were face to face again. Dan was nervous.

“I’m Dan,” he said and held out his hand as if this was some kind of business meeting.

“Phil,” said the man and took Dan’s hand.

Then they let go and Dan internally panicked because, _what now?!_

“I, uh, like your piano playing,” Phil said eventually, and _god_ , he was feeling as awkward as Dan was, he could tell.

“Thanks. I mean, I’m not that good, I’ve only started taking lessons again really. Because I used to play when I was younger, but then I stopped, but I decided to take it up again.” Shit, he was only talking about himself. “But your requests have been really nice, it’s been fun,” he added before crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yeah, I was on my way to leave another one when I saw your note.”

“Oh, really? What were you going with this time?”

“Cancer by My Chemical Romance,” Phil said, his cheeks graced by a slight blush.

“Cheery,” Dan said dryly, and he was prepared to feel like an asshole but Phil laughed so he didn’t have to.

“I figured it would be pretty easy to play.”

“It is. I’ve played it before.” Dan cleared his throat. “You have a mixed taste in music.”

“I just picked whatever I’ve heard you play, to be safe – what I could identify anyway. I live right under you so I hear most of your music.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dan said and desperately tried to remember when he had last listened to My Chemical Romance. Had he even listened to them since moving in?

“No, it’s fine,” Phil assured him. “We have a very similar taste in music. Well. Except for the Kpop.”

Dan wanted to die.

“Umm,” he said intelligibly. “What else can you hear from down there?”

Dan didn’t realise how suggestive that sounded until the words had already left his mouth. He looked at Phil to see if he had picked up on it. If he had, he didn’t show it.

“Not much. I can hear you pacing, sometimes, and your gamer rage.”

Dan wanted to die. Again.

“What, have you never been frustrated after dying five times?” Dan opted for the playful response.

“I tend to internalise. And it’s more like twenty-five times in my case.”

“You don’t play?”

“I do, I just suck.”

Phil’s good-natured bluntness made him snort. Phil seemed nice, and neither of them were feeling quite as awkward anymore, it seemed. Then Dan realised that they were still just casually chilling by his front door.

“Do you want to come in?” Dan asked and pointed a thumb over his shoulder.

“Sure.”

Dan led them to his couch, and when they had sat down, silence took over. The relaxed atmosphere they’d established in the hallway was being taken over by the awkwardness creeping back. _Wouldn’t this Phil guy say something?_ Dan glanced at him.

Phil was cute. Dan thought about how several of his friends had said that the note-leaving business was romantic, then he felt silly. Yes, Phil was cute, but Dan didn’t know him at all. He could be a cannibal or, worse, a Trump-supporter.

“Thank you for the requests, by the way,” Dan said and Phil looked relieved that he’d broken the silence.

“Thank you for taking them,” Phil countered.

“It’s been fun,” Dan said with a smile.

“How long have you played?”

“Not long. Only like, three months or something. I played a little when I was younger, but I haven’t really had the… opportunity. Then I moved here and the previous lodger had left a piano, so I thought why not.” Was he talking too much? Phil didn’t look bored though; he was nodding encouragingly.

“I don’t remember ever hearing anyone play up here. When did you move here?” Phil asked.

“End of October, I think.”

“Huh. That’s quite a while; I haven’t seen you around. Although I wouldn’t. I don’t really go outside that much if I can avoid it,” Phil said, then he looked abashed, like he suddenly realised he was openly admitting to something most people considered a bad habit.

 “I get what you mean,” Dan said. “As soon as I have a day off I curl up in bed and just watch Steven Universe for twelve hours.”

Phil keened at the mention of Steven Universe, and they quickly bonded over the show. Conversation came easy after that, and Phil ended up staying for a little over three hours. They had a lot to talk about, since they had a lot in common. Dan soon found out that Phil wasn’t just cute, he was also charming in a very subtle, genuine way that made Dan’s stomach curl. Dan even dared to let out a raunchy joke that Phil laughed at. Dan hoped Phil had an equally good impression of him; he saw them possibly becoming good friends.

When Phil left, it was with Dan’s number in his phone. Dan had barely been alone for five minutes before his phone chimed with a text.

_‘Hi, this is Phil :)’_

Should he answer? It was just a text to go along with his number though, and it was late. It was hardly like they were going to have a conversation via text after three hours of talking.

Dan left it and texted Louise instead. Maybe she had gone to bed already, but honestly it was her own fault if she didn’t have Don’t Disturb mode activated.

_‘met the anonymous requester today. his name is phil and he’s really cool’_

He didn’t want to seem too excited in case Phil didn’t actually want to be his friend, or if he turned out to be an asshole. Dan really hoped he wasn’t; they had clicked.

The next day, while he was folding shirts at work, Dan contemplated if it was too early to text Phil. He didn’t want to seem too eager, but he didn’t want to seem uninterested either. Phil had sent his text last night, so technically the ball was in Dan’s corner now.

Halfway through his shift he decided to text Phil. It wasn’t like he was asking him on a date or anything. He was just gonna sow the seeds of friendship and see if they landed in fertile soil.

He hid in one of the changing rooms, since he didn’t want to get in trouble for using his phone at work.

_‘hey it was nice meeting you the other day,’_ he started the text, then added a happy emoji. _‘we should hang sometime.’_

There. Casual and positive.

He only hesitated for two minutes before sending it. Phil responded immediately.

_‘Definitely :) When are you free?’_

Oh, okay. Dan didn’t need to worry about being too forward; Phil was obviously on board.

After cross-referencing their schedules, they found out that the earliest time they could meet was the beginning of next week. Phil was a busy guy, apparently. Dan wondered if he was a social butterfly, or if he had a demanding job. What if he had children, like the guy on the first floor? Dan had no idea, and didn’t know how to ask. They really hadn’t covered much information last time, despite talking for hours. They had mostly spent that time nerding out over common interests. Phil could be a married father of four for all he knew. Or a politician, or a night nurse, or a fucking clown. He could be a national chess champion. Dan didn’t even know his last name.

What Dan did know, however, was that he was overthinking. As always. It wasn’t like any of his friends had entered his life and handed him a personal file. It felt different because he’d been aware of Phil’s existence (although shrouded in mystery) for weeks, and because they had clicked so well last night. It had tricked his brain into thinking that he should know Phil more than he did. He’d get to know Phil soon enough. Maybe.

Dan sighed. He could literally feel his expectations building up. He did not need this. It had happened before: he met someone cool, they seemed to be hitting it off, then the friendship fizzled out. He needed to keep his distance and not get emotionally attached too soon, which he could admit was a problem he had sometimes when he met people he instantly liked.

After planning their next meeting, Dan expected the texting to be over, but then he received another text from Phil asking him about his day. Dan walked to a more secluded part of the store to discreetly answer it. He told Phil that he was at work, then where he worked, and then he felt the need to explain that it was temporary until his fashion blog broke through. Then he felt stupid. Maybe Phil would think he was stupid. But Phil responded positively and asked more about his blog and his plans for it. The rest of the day continued like that; Dan moving around all over the store and texting Phil. The conversation progressed from Dan’s blog to Phil’s family to how creepy their landlord was, and onwards. Dan even managed to mention Donald Trump’s latest blunder, and Phil’s mocking response and eye-rolling emojis told him that Phil held no love for the man, which. _Phew_.

The following day, Dan woke up to a notification that said that @amazingphil had started following him on Instagram. He had liked the photo of the first note, too. Dan followed him back, and scrolled through his pictures. He looked at Phil’s selfies, and it was weird how quickly he had forgotten what he looked like. He had remembered the black hair, his height, his pale skin, but looking at the selfies now refreshed his memory of the details. He really was cute.

It was strange; Phil didn’t seem concerned at all that he might be coming on too strong. _Was_ he coming on too strong? Was it weird? Dan felt a bit weird about it. Phil had mentioned not going outside much, was he a loner? Did he want to be Dan’s friend simply because Dan was the only one being nice to him? What if he wasn’t interested in Dan, the real Dan, at all?

Right. Overthinking. Again. Dan took a deep breath and tried to let it go. He’d notice if he was simply the only cure available for loneliness.

He considered not texting Phil that day, to test him, but he couldn’t help himself.

_‘saw you stalking me on instagram,’_ he sent, then half regretted it. He hadn’t gotten a full grasp of Phil’s humour yet, and their friendship was still (and could very well remain) in the polite-and-friendly phase.

_‘Haha yeah :)’_ came the response. Lukewarm. Before he could respond, his phone buzzed with another text: _‘Might as well; the window peeping was getting old.’_

Alright, that was bold. Dan liked that. He wrote an even more suggestive text back, but he didn’t dare to send it. He didn’t want to scare Phil off, or make him think Dan was coming on to him or something. Because he wasn’t.

_‘i can imagine, i don’t really do much,’_ he sent instead, and okay, yeah, he was totally selling himself.

_‘I’m sure that’s not true :)’_

Dan wanted to protest, but he knew that would make things awkward. Instead he changed the subject.

_‘so what you wanna do when we meet up?’_

_‘I’m up for anything,’_ Phil answered with a lion emoji at the end. Dan couldn’t quite decide if it was ridiculous or adorable. Maybe both.

_‘pizza and video games?’_ Dan suggested. Phil had said he liked gaming, and no one in their right mind disliked pizza. It was a safe card.

_‘Sounds great :D’_

The days until they would meet up went by pretty quickly, with work and a piano lesson to fill Dan’s time and distract from the subtle nerves that had started to make themselves known.

“Have you received any more requests from your secret admirer?” Frances asked while she was rooting around for the sheet music she had misplaced somewhere in her messy living room.

“Uh, yeah. And I’ve met him, actually,” Dan said.

She looked up from her searching.

“Oh? Who is it?”

“A neighbour. His name is Phil.”

Frances studied him silently, as if she was trying to figure something out.

“Are you disappointed?” She asked.

“What? No! Why would I be disappointed?”

“Maybe you were hoping for Prince Charming,” she said with a shrug.

Oh. _Well_.

“Who’s to say he isn’t?” Dan said jokingly.

Frances gave him a rare smile before going back to looking for the sheet music, which she eventually found and started the lesson. Dan hadn’t been practising as much as he should have, he knew, but his fingers had been busy typing texts to Phil. Frances probably wouldn’t be happy to hear that though, so he didn’t tell her.

***

On the day of their anticipated get-together, Dan tidied his apartment, but he didn’t vacuum in case Phil would hear it (with the knowledge that Phil could hear a lot of things through the floorboards, Dan had been forced to rethink a lot of his activities. Or at least the volume of them.). When his apartment looked like the perfect combination of neat and casual, he jumped in the shower. He felt nervous as he did all of it, nervous about meeting Phil again. Phil was so nice and engaging over text, and he was almost scared that the same connection wouldn’t exist between them in real life. The fact that they had spent a pleasant evening together already did nothing to calm him down. In a way, it felt like this was their first real meeting. Then, Phil had been a stranger. Now, he was an acquaintance, almost a friend. At least the nervousness was positive; giddy, instead of anxious.

When Dan had styled himself to the same degree of casual neatness as his surroundings, it was two hours shy of their agreed time. That’s a first. Usually he’s not even half ready when his friends are at the door because he is a horrible person with bad time management.

He spends the next hour and a half drumming his fingers against his leg while scrolling through various social media with his other hand.

It’s weird, playing video games with someone new. How much rude banter could they take? Did they play fair or dirty? Phil had said he was bad at gaming; did he expect Dan to let him win occasionally or was he fine with being annihilated?

Phil knocked at his door half an hour early. Dan looked himself over one last time in the mirror before opening. There Phil was.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

They were smiling at each other, both a little nervous.

“I’m sorry if I’m early,” Phil said while taking off his shoes. “I was getting hungry and thought we could order the pizza right away. Unless you’ve already eaten.”

“Yeah, no, now is fine.”

They spent the next ten minutes arguing over toppings. Well, ‘arguing’, since it mostly consisted of trying to politely compromise. Eventually, they ended up ordering two pizzas with their own preferred topping on with the agreement that they could sample the other’s.

“What do you want to play?” Dan asked while they waited for the pizza to arrive.

“Did you have anything particular in mind?” Phil asked.

“I was thinking maybe Halo or TimeSplitters, but I’m up for anything really.”

Again, they were being polite, trying to make the other one choose.

“Ohh, TimeSplitters. I haven’t played that in ages,” Phil said, looking thrilled at the aspect.

The pizzaman called and Phil went downstairs to grab the pizzas while Dan loaded up the game. When Phil came back, his face was beet red.

“What?” Dan asked.

Phil put down the pizzas on the coffee table before turning to Dan.

“I fell down the stairs right in front of the pizzaman.”

“What?!”

Phil made an embarrassed noise and hid behind his hands. Dan didn’t even try to stop the laughter bubbling up in him.

“Tell me,” he said between giggles.

“I tripped on one of the steps and face-planted right in front of the door. And because of the giant windows, so he saw all of it,” Phil explained, looking equally parts miserable and amused. “He looked absolutely horrified.”

Dan couldn’t help the next wave of laughter, but at least Phil joined him.

“These things always happen to me,” he said. “I swear I am the clumsiest person in the world.”

“If this is a regular occurrence, then I made the right choice in befriending you. Endless entertainment,” Dan said.

“Just wait until you find out I’m a weirdo magnet as well,” Phil said.

“Weirdo magnet?”

And that’s how Phil spent the entire dinner telling Dan about all the strange people he somehow kept encountering, everyone more unbelievable than the previous.

“I can’t tell if you’re making this up or not,” Dan said.

“I’m not! I promise! They just flock to me, I don’t know why.”

“Maybe they feel a certain kinship…” Dan remarked. He hadn’t known Phil for very long, but much time wasn’t needed to realise that Phil was quite odd (in the most delightful way possible).

“Shut up,” Phil told him, even while smiling. “My dad gets weirdos around him too, so it might be hereditary.”

“Mm, you both secrete that special scent that weirdos just cannot resist.”

“ _Please,_ never say that again.”

After they’d eaten their pizzas, they started playing. Phil had been selling himself short; he definitely was good. Yet he did cause the death of them both multiple times until Dan couldn’t control the things that spewed out of his mouth. He looked over to Phil, worried that he’d been too rude, but Phil was grinning like he hadn’t just been called a “motherfucking cunt”, or like he was proud of the title. Then Phil distracted Dan with his really dumb fighting talk so that they died again (and then he said “See! I’m not the only one killing us!” as if it hadn’t been completely his fault).

They easily lost themselves in banter and running commentary, and soon they had been playing for hours. They turned off the game, but Dan didn’t want Phil to leave yet.

“Do you want some tea or something?” He asked.

“Sure.”

Dan thought Phil would wait in the living room while he made the tea, but Phil proceeded to follow him into the kitchen so that he could continue talking to him. Which was… wild. _When had anyone ever done that?_ Dan felt warm as he readied the tea, and tried to hide the smile he could not suppress.

Phil ended up staying for another two hours, even if it was getting late. Dan felt increasingly comfortable around him, and even told him a few personal things (brushed over, like they were no big deal). When Phil left, he gave Dan a hug. It was slightly awkward because Dan wasn’t expecting it, and they had both been cursed with long limbs and bad eye-hand coordination, but it was nice. Phil’s chest was soft and firm at the same time, and warm against him. He was left with a wholesome feeling in his chest until he went to sleep.

He met nice people all the time, people with similar interests that he became friendly with. Meeting someone that he properly clicked with was on the other hand rare. He dearly hoped that their connection wasn’t only on the surface. It was the first time in a long time he had met someone who he’d immediately known he wanted to form a friendship with. Dan really wanted their friendship to pan out, was almost anxious with it. Embarrassingly enough, he wasn’t the only one who knew this. He hadn’t even noticed he was singing Phil’s praises on a regular basis until Louise pointed this out to him one day when he was over at her place.

“Sorry, I’m just excited to have a friend,” he said and tried to act nonchalant.

“You have friends,” Louise said.

“Like, two.”

“Three if you count your grandma,” she said before laughing at his offended expression.

“I can’t believe you, using my sorrow against me,” he said and shook his head, faux-hurt by her words.

“You seeing him again soon?” She asked.

“Yeah. I mean, hopefully. He’s pretty busy.”

“What does he do?”

“Umm…” Dan realised he actually didn’t know. That was just awkward. “I don’t know.”

Louise gave him an incredulous look.

“How long have you known this guy?”

“Not long, we’ve only met twice,” Dan said, although he knew his defence went up in smoke with their constant texting.

Louise dropped it, but Dan couldn’t. When he left her house, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He felt like he knew Phil pretty well by now; he knew his interests and a lot of his opinions, he could read his expressions fairly accurately, he knew that their different kinds of humour were compatible. Still, there was actually quite a lot he didn’t know about Phil, and while that was expected of a fresh friendship, it seemed strange that the most basic question of them all – _what do you do for a living_ – hadn’t come up. Was Phil embarrassed of his job? Maybe if he was a proctologist (which honestly wasn’t something Dan wanted to imagine). Or maybe it was worse; he could be a conversation therapist. That was very unlikely though, since he had befriended Dan, who was the opposite of subtle.

When he walked through the front door to his building, he decided to knock on Phil’s door on the way up to see if he was home and wanted to hang out. It wasn’t that late yet, and he was in the mood to watch a movie. He heard footsteps drawing closer to the door and he was already smiling before Phil opened it. When he did, however, Dan’s smile fell away.

“Oh, hey Dan,” Phil said with a smile, but Dan could only stare at his clothes.

“Um.”

Phil looked down on himself.

“Oh yeah, I’m on my way to work,” he said.

“You’re joking, right?” Dan asked, even if the sinking feeling in his stomach told him that this was no joke.

“No?” Phil said, frowning. “I’m a priest,” he added after a moment, as if the fucking cassock he was wearing wasn’t obvious enough.

“I didn’t know that,” Dan said. He sounded like an entitled child even to his own ears.

“I probably forgot to tell you,” Phil said with a casual half-shrug.

“Yes,” Dan started, and he could feel his face getting stuck in a grimace, “you definitely did.”

Phil looked at him, the frown deepening and then disappearing. The casualness had dropped, and now Phil’s face was blank and Dan felt increasingly awkward.

“Did you want anything?” Phil asked with chilly politeness.

“Not really, I just wanted to see if you were free.”

“Oh okay, well, I’m not. Some other time.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, uh, I gotta go. I’m leading the Evensong tonight.”

“Uh, yeah, okay. See you?”

“Mhm.”

Phil had barely closed the door before Dan fled up the stairs. _Shit, shit, shit!_

Well into his own apartment, he was reeling from this new discovery. He stood right at the front door and just sighed. He couldn’t find it in himself to watch that movie, or do anything really. He felt strange, affected. Which was dumb, because Phil was just a priest. It wasn’t like he was a murderer or anything.

But… he was a priest. It left Dan with a bad taste in his mouth. A _priest_. That was possibly the last thing Dan would have guessed Phil was. He would have guessed that Phil was a brothel mama before he guessed he was a priest.

Dan had a difficult relationship with religion. He didn’t mind it, not really, but he had been raised learning that it was The Truth, and as he grew older he started to realise that it wasn’t _his_ truth. It hadn’t been an easy realisation, that just made him shrug and go on with his life. It had overwhelmed him with guilt; towards the church, towards his grandma, towards God…

It didn’t help that he was told that homosexuality was “a sin you need to ask forgiveness for like any other”, just around the time he started realising he wasn’t straight. Had that been what had set the ball rolling, or the final straw? Dan couldn’t remember. He only remembered a mixture of guilt and anger. For a while after leaving his faith, he was almost aggressively defensive and hostile towards Christianity. It had been the lingering shame and resentment influencing him, but he had let it go by now (mostly; he could still sometimes feel like God’s eyes were on him, judging his every move). He wasn’t gonna pretend like he didn’t roll his eyes when he read about the stupid things religious leaders had to say in the news, but in general he had no problem with it. So why did it bother him so much that Phil was a Christian? Louise was a Christian and that didn’t bother him.

Dan was a pretty introspective person and it didn’t take long to piece this puzzle together. It wasn’t Phil’s Christian faith that bothered him as much as the fact that he was a priest. A priest, as in celibate-and-won’t-date-you. Because that was apparently on Dan’s wish list.

_Oh_.

The realisation that he had feelings for Phil was so unsurprising that it was almost upsetting. _Of course_ he had feelings for Phil. Phil was sweet and funny and dorky and attentive. And a priest. Dan’s subconscious had thought it knew in which direction their interactions were going, but now it was freaking out, which in turn made Dan freak out without really knowing why. Somewhere between his overthinking and his determination not to get attached too soon, Dan had missed the feelings that were blooming inside of him.

“Oh no,” he said out loud to himself.

He had a crush on a priest. He was going to internally facepalm for the rest of his life. This was… typical. Trust Dan to take the falling-for-a-straight-guy cliché and make it 100% more pathetic.

He took off his clothes and went to bed. But he didn’t sleep. Instead, he stared out into the darkness, feeling nausea rise in his throat. He was stupid, fucking stupid. How could he ever have believed; how could he had thought –

His mind taunted him with echoes of all the cringeworthy, saccharine things he had said about Phil, reeking with expectations. He had even told Frances that Phil might be his dream prince or whatever. What had he been doing, announcing their engagement?

He turned to his side and the nausea subsided somewhat. He’d made a mistake. It wasn’t his fault, really, and it didn’t have to complicate things. They could still be friends. Phil was a great guy, and yes, the priest thing was a disappointment, but it’s not like he knew Dan had feelings for him. He hoped, at least.

The night was long and dreadful, with little sleep and a heavy feeling enclosing his heart, like a bowling ball of embarrassment and despair was resting on his chest. In the morning, the weather matched his mood with grey clouds and a lazy drizzle. Dan wanted to hide under his duvet and pretend his miserable existence wasn’t a fact, but he had half a mind to apologise to Phil. Or at least gloss over his bad behaviour with some good. He had recognised in himself the same barely disguised distaste that older male relatives usually reacted with when they found out he aspired for a career in fashion (or, gasp and gulp, that he was a _homophile_ ), and Phil had definitely noted his aversion. And been hurt by it. And now Dan felt bad, which made him a bit mad because he wanted to wallow in self-pity and then he became annoyed at himself for valuing his own feelings over Phil’s. This really wasn’t a good start of the day.

The other half of his mind was reluctant to see Phil at all. With the knowledge that Phil was a priest, all good impressions of him came into question. Dan had no way of knowing how conservative he was, they had never really discussed politics. Dan was already dealing with the discovery that Phil was a priest and that he had a crush on him, if he had to discover that Phil was a fucking bigot as well he might just stop existing altogether from pure frustration alone.

Dan paced around his apartment and tried to figure out how to go about this. He started with the most obvious: texting Phil and asking if he wanted to meet up. Because he didn’t really need to plan ahead if Phil decided to close the door in his face. The thought brought icy trickles to his heart. This is why it was important for him to mend the rift he might’ve caused last night; they had no established friendship yet, and if neither one of them reached out, their budding bond would frost over.

Waiting for Phil’s reply was torture. When his phone finally beeped, Dan was so high-strung he almost dropped it. Phil told him to come downstairs to his apartment around three o’clock, and while his text was devoid of emojis, there was a smiley face included. Okay, good.

Dan started getting ready and quietly hated himself when he realised how hard he was trying. He just couldn’t help himself, could he? To be honest, it was quite relieving to have been unaware of his building hopes before they were squashed. Not that there was any true relief about this whole situation.

He heard someone entering the building at around a quarter to three. Maybe that was Phil coming home from work. Dan still hadn’t figured out exactly how to ‘apologise’ or whatever (technically, he hadn’t done anything wrong).

Fifteen minutes later, he was down at Phil’s door. His heart was beating hard against his ribcage, and he barely dared to knock. Then he took a deep breath, told himself this whole thing was much ado about fuck all, and knocked.

Phil gave him a small smile when he opened, and led him into his apartment. It was the first time Dan had been in here. He looked around curiously, half-expecting to come face to face with a Madonna statue or see a crucifix on the wall, but Phil’s apartment looked very… Phil. There was a bookshelf in his lounge that was filled with not only books but also with miscellaneous crap, everything from board games to small nerdy figurines. There were photos of some people as well, who Dan assumed were Phil’s family members, and a dying houseplant. There was also a palm that looked a bit weaning in the corner and a row of cacti on the windowsill. On the wall above the couch hung a framed Muse poster.

“Nice poster,” he said.

“Thank you.”

They were a bit stiff, that was undeniable, but they both seemed determined to act natural.

“You want anything?” Phil asked.

“No, I’m fine. Thanks,” Dan said, even if he was a bit hungry.

“I’m gonna make some coffee for myself. You can sit down, if you want,” Phil said before disappearing to the kitchen.

While Phil made his coffee, Dan poked some of the cacti carefully, then he sat down on the couch just in time for when Phil returned. Phil sat down beside him, but further away than he’d done the two previous times. Had Phil understood what Dan really wanted before Dan himself did? Had he seen Dan’s disappointment last night?

They talked a little, which mostly consisted of exchanging polite phrases, until Dan decided he had to address the priest-shaped elephant in the room.

“So. Um. You’re a priest.” Great start.

Phil put his cup down on the coffee table.

“Yeah.” He didn’t offer anything else.

“I’m sorry if I was weird yesterday,” Dan said. “I just wasn’t prepared for that. I mean, you don’t really give off the priest vibe, if you know what I mean.”

“What do you mean?” Phil asked, not willing to make this easy for Dan at all, it seemed.

“You like horror movies, and Pokémon, and. And you laugh at my dirty jokes.”

“Yeah, because I’m also a person,” Phil said pointedly. Then he sighed. “I don’t usually start with the whole priest thing because people are weird about it.”

“Weird how?”

“They’re like, ‘Phil, you’re not allowed to swear’ or like… ‘Phil, do you think gay people go to hell?’” Phil rolled his eyes.

“Do you think gay people go to hell?” Dan had to ask.

“No, of course not!” Phil looked properly offended.

“Good. Because, I’m like. You know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Phil said offhandedly and reached for his coffee cup again.

Alright.

Dan guessed he could leave it at that, really, but he felt like he should explain himself more.

“I grew up Christian. It wasn’t… the best thing ever. For me. That’s why I was a bit hesitant,” he offered.

“I understand,” Phil said with a nod. His voice has regained its usual softness.

“What about you?”

“I didn’t grow up with any religion really. I stumbled upon this stuff by myself while I was doing English at university.”

“Really? What did your family think?” Dan asked.

“They were fine with it. We have Christian relatives, so it wasn’t that foreign to them, I think.”

“No, I mean, what did they think about you becoming a priest?” Dan clarified.

If he’d become a priest, his grandma would probably have cried with happiness. His parents though… they might’ve had a problem with the whole celibacy thing, since they were hoping for grandchildren in the future.

“Oh, that. They thought that was a bit weird. They actually laughed when I told them because they thought it was a joke. But after that they were supportive. They’ve always been supportive,” Phil said and smiled.

Dan couldn’t help but feel a slight burn of jealousy. His parents hadn’t been overly fond of his decision to drop out of university, and it was with utmost reluctance they sanctioned his bold pursuit of his dream. Because he discovered this dream rather late (he’d shown no interest in clothes or fashion when he was younger), he’d been afraid to take the plunge at first, and when he finally found the courage, he was afraid to tell his parents in case they thought he was just grasping at random straws. His fears came true, as he had predicted, but after many weeks and many serious conversations (and fights), he had their blessings.

“So, like… do people call you ‘father’?” Dan asked.

“Yes.”

“That must be weird.”

“It was, at first, but I’m used to it now.”

“… Should I be calling you ‘father’?” Dan asked and regretted the words as soon as they had left his mouth.

Phil smiled.

“You can, if you want.”

There was something about the way he said it that made Dan feel hot all over.

“Ehhh…” Dan said intelligibly.

“But none of my other friends do,” Phil said, rescuing him.

“It’s a pretty social job though,” Dan pointed out, eager to change the subject. “You said you had social anxiety.”

“I do, but it’s different. I know the people in my congregation, so I’m not nervous around them. Usually.”

“And the church has a social context,” Dan supplied and Phil’s nodded.

“Exactly! And a lot of my job is quite performative, you know? Like, some actors have social anxiety, but they can still act. I do that too. I guess I enter a sort of more confident persona. And the one-on-one meetings are never that bad, because it’s only one person. I can usually deal with that. It probably helps that I’m an authority figure, because then they’re not rude.”

“What that’s like?”

“Good, mostly. People listen to me.” Phil thought for a moment. “Bad sometimes, I guess, also because people listen to me. I always have to watch what I say.”

Dan snorted.

It wasn’t until Phil mentioned it that Dan thought about the fact that Phil had a congregation, that he was leading a congregation. That answered the question of whether Phil was a loner or not; if it was one thing Dan had learned about church, it was that everyone was desperate to get on the priest’s dick (figuratively, of course. Although in Phil’s case it was probably literally as well.). A whole congregation to choose from, and Phil had picked Dan, his strange emo neighbour, to befriend. It was pretty flattering, to be honest.

“But wait,” Dan started, another thought occurring to him, “shouldn’t you be living in a vicarage or something?”

“I wish,” Phil said. “No, Samuel has that. Uh, the senior priest. I might get it when I become senior priest in like, twenty years, but I don’t know. We’ve talked about selling it. Our economy is pretty bad.”

It was strange to think about Phil as a person who ran a church, who was in charge of economy and properties and probably had to apply for financial aid for restorations every now and then. Phil, with his mismatched socks and black-dyed hair who fell down the stairs.

Dan had at least half a million more questions about Phil’s work, his beliefs, but he thought about what Phil had said about being a person too and changed the subject. He didn’t want Phil to think that their friendship had to change just because he’d found about the priest thing.

Phil gave him a full tour of the small apartment, which shared the exact same layout as Dan’s own. It was fun, especially when Phil supplied him with small facts about random memorabilia (“I bought that NASA magnet at the space centre in Kennedy” or “I really like David Shrigley so I thought I’d order this small sculpture but it was much bigger than I thought and now it’s just awkward”). He had honestly expected to find more things that alluded to Phil’s job, but there wasn’t as much as a rosary on Phil’s bedside table for him to clutch when the anxiety was high. He did see a strange hat though (“It’s a Canterbury cap. My mentor gave it to me when I was ordained, just for fun; they’re traditional but we don’t really use them anymore.”), and managed to find two bibles in a closer inspection of Phil’s bookshelf.

“Does it bother you that I don’t believe?” He couldn’t help but ask, despite promising himself to drop the subject.

“No. Does it bother you that I’m a priest?” Phil countered.

“No,” Dan lied. He glanced at Phil. “I might have some beef with God though.”

“Why?”

“I set fire to a bible once.”

Dan saw how Phil’s eyes widened almost comically.

“ _What?_ ”

“It was by accident,” he said.

“What did you do, look at it?” Phil asked.

Dan gaped at him, then fake gasped.

“Rude!”

Phil laughed, his tongue poking out between his teeth. Dan laughed too; Phil’s laugh was contagious, and Dan loved it. Goddamn, he loved it so much. Now that he was aware of his own feelings, they were harder to ignore even if he desperately wanted to. Luckily, Phil seemed unaware and Dan could stomp them out in peace later. He’d fallen out of love before and he could do it again. Besides, he had caught these feelings in their fetal state, so it would be easier this time around.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again. Thank you so much for all the positive feedback! I hope you will enjoy this chapter, a bit longer than the last. And again, always feel free to come say hi on [tumblr](http://imsorryimlate.tumblr.com/) *wink wink*

_“I want to be with you, it is as simple, and as complicated as that.”  
– Charles Bukowski_

* * *

 

The weeks passed by and Dan continued hanging around Phil. Phil, the priest. It was weird to say, because he still didn’t quite associate Phil with priesthood (all the other priests he’d met were old and strict).

It was good. Being Phil’s friend was one of the best things to have happened to him, although he was hesitant to label it that way to anyone but himself in case the whole thing turned out to be temporary and he was left looking like a fool. He couldn’t quite imagine that it was though; Phil had twice prioritised his company over another social engagement. Which didn’t make sense at all, since Dan lived just up the stairs from him and therefore could reschedule more easily, but Phil had still prioritised him. Wild.

Having a friend living so close was great, actually. Because of their busy schedules, they had few full days to spend together, but they could easily catch a few hours here or there. They had started having dinner together quite often (Phil was a surprisingly good cook) while watching some TV-show. It was so much nicer watching shows together with someone else.

Spending time with Phil, which was something he did a lot these days, was this strange combination of the most exciting thing on Earth and also the most comfortable, the most natural. It was almost as if they’d known each other for years. Even when Dan thought back to the time before he’d met Phil, in his mind it looked a bit empty, as if Phil should’ve been there. He could remember events, things he’d done, but he couldn’t imagine not being lonely without Phil. Well, he had been lonely; but had he felt as lonely as he imagined it? He had friends, good friends, but who had he talked to all the time? Who had he shared his thoughts with? Had he shared his thoughts at all? Dan would ramble on for ages and Phil let him, listening intently, commented and brought up his own ideas. Sometimes he even argued with him. Sure, Dan talked with his friends, but it was nothing compared to the literal word bombs that he would let fall from his lips, because he knew Phil was interested in what he had to say. Dan couldn’t remember having _that_ with anyone before. How had he not exploded?

This was all mutual, obviously. Phil talked a lot too, but in a more controlled manner. It probably came with being a semi-public person. Dan wanted him to talk more, and wanted to ask him about everything. He also itched to ask about his faith, to bring up near impossible questions and dilemmas and demand he’d answer them. Every time Dan read or heard about something some bigoted Christian had said or done, he wanted to bring it to Phil’s attention and ask him to explain. He did none of this, of course not, because that would be mean. Besides, he didn’t want Phil to think he was still hung up on the priest thing, even if he was.

At first, Dan had tried to filter his language a bit, not exclaiming “Jesus fucking Christ” or “For God’s sake” around Phil. Whenever it did slip out, however, he glanced at Phil, but the other man gave no reaction to the use. It didn’t take long for Dan to figure out that Phil was a bit more chill than he’d expect of a priest. Whenever he thought like that, he quietly reminded himself of what Phil had said about also being a person. No wonder Phil didn’t bring up his occupation the first thing he did; it gave people a certain kind of tunnel vision. Even Dan, who tried his best not to assume or hold people up to a mental template of expectations. Phil was a wonderful person, and should never be reduced to only one aspect. He displayed a multifaceted set of behaviours and characteristics, everything from the wise and paternal to the absurd and childlike.

One day at the tail end of May, Phil texted him telling him to look out of his window. Dan looked out of his kitchen window and saw Phil’s entire head sticking out of the window beneath. Dan opened up and stuck his head out as well.

“What are you doing?” He asked and Phil turned upwards.

“Hi!” He said and stuck his hand out to wave. “I’m cleaning.”

“What, the windows?”

“No.” Phil laughed. “I’m airing out my apartment. But I realised this is the first time I can do this.” He cleared his throat, and then with a lowered voice, spoke again. “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?”

Dan laughed, and continued.

“Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet.”

Phil looked surprised.

“You know it?” He asked.

“Yes, of course,” Dan said, affronted. “It’s Shakespeare.”

“No, I mean, the whole play,” Phil clarified with a small roll of his eyes. “I only know the Romeo line.”

“Not the whole play. Some of it. I used to be in a theatre club.”

“Really? That’s cool,” Phil said and it sounded like he genuinely meant it.

“You don’t look very comfortable,” Dan said. Phil was looking up at him, but it was from an angle bending his neck.

“Isn’t it neat that we can talk from our windows like this?” Phil said and completely disregarded Dan’s concerns for his well-being.

“The neighbours are gonna think we’re really weird,” Dan remarked without much care.

He ended up finding a bag of Gummy Bears and trying to throw them into Phil’s mouth. All of them missed, with one landing in Phil’s eye and another bouncing off his upper lip. Then they changed places, Dan giving Phil the bag of Gummy Bears when they passed each other in the stairs. Phil actually managed to throw one into Dan’s mouth, but he wasn’t prepared and almost choked.

For a while, Dan forgot that he was supposed to be an adult, and instead just enjoyed himself. It felt almost as if parts of him he had forgotten existed or didn’t even know about were awakening and blooming in Phil’s company.

And yet… whenever they said goodbye, when Dan was alone in his apartment, he felt hopeless, in a way. It wasn’t heartbreak, or pain. It was just a kind of emptiness. He felt like an squeezed-out dishrag. His feelings for Phil weren’t subsiding at all; they were deepening into something real, settling into his heart and weighing him down. It was a heavy burden to carry around and hide every day, and it drained him. With every anecdote and bad pun, Phil endeared himself further to him, and he could do nothing to stop it. Well, he guessed he could put some distance between them, if not physically then at least emotionally. But come on, he wasn’t going to do that.

The first few weeks, Dan had been incredibly embarrassed by his feelings. Even if no one knew about them, he felt as if the whole world was laughing at him. When his friends asked about Phil, he answered and then swiftly changed the subject, nervous that one of them would fix him with their eyes and state, “you fancy him, don’t you?”. He was even more worried that Phil would somehow realise what was going on and, disgusted, withdraw from his company. But Phil seemed oblivious, which he honestly should get a medal for as Dan caught himself openly staring more times than he cared to keep track of.

The embarrassment had decreased over time (even if it came back in waves every now and then and made him stumble into minor existential crises which consisted of “what is my life?” and feeling lonelier than ever), and that’s when his feelings were a bit easier to handle. He tried to stuff them into the back of his mind, let them become a background noise, but it was like trying to hide a circus under a rug. It was distracting, to say the least.

***

On Dan’s birthday, Phil made him pancakes for breakfast.

“Seriously, I feel so stupid for not getting you anything,” he said while whisking together the batter.

“You didn’t know it was my birthday,” Dan said from his seat at the table.

They had been hanging out late the night before, having a movie marathon, and at midnight Dan’s phone had started beeping with several birthday messages. When Phil found out what was going on, he demanded that Dan would come downstairs for breakfast in the morning. It had been strange, exiting his apartment and padding down the stairs dressed only in sweats and an old _Reading Festival_ t-shirt, still sleepy with pillow creases on his face.

“You could have told me,” Phil pointed out.

He ignited the stove before crossing the kitchen to get the butter out of the fridge, then picked an apron from a hook next to it. Dan laughed when he saw it.

“What’s that?” He asked as Phil tied the straps behind his back.

On the apron was a photoprint of a naked, muscular male body; cock on display and all.

“It’s an x-ray apron,” Phil said matter-of-factly. “This is exactly what I look like under my clothes.”

 _I bet you’re bigger_ , Dan thought, because, well, Phil had a tendency to sit with his legs spread wide open no matter what he was wearing. Dan might have seen an outline.

He didn’t say anything though, he just took out his phone and took a photo of Phil, who posed with the spatula. He posted it on Instagram, cutting it off at the hips.  
_’Phil is making me birthday pancakes. Trust me, the camera can’t go any lower than this,’_ he captioned it.

“What are you doing tonight?” Phil asked while flipping the pancakes.

“Oh, some friends are taking me out to a restaurant to celebrate,” Dan said.

Technically, he could invite Phil along, but a part of him wanted to keep Phil to himself. As much as he loved his friends, he wasn’t prepared to share Phil with them just yet. What if Phil ended up liking them more than he liked Dan? Besides, while Phil was blind to Dan’s heart eyes, his friends wouldn’t be. He didn’t need them finding out about his little situation and give him pitying looks whenever Phil’s back was turned. If Phil accidentally saw them doing that, he wouldn’t need half a braincell to figure out that Dan was gagging for it.

Dan ended up staying for longer than he should have and had to rush to get ready. On his way out, he glanced at Phil’s door, feeling a little guilty that he hadn’t invited Phil along, especially since he knew Phil had the day off. Well, he wasn’t the saint here.

***

The dinner turned out great and when Dan came home, it was late and he was a little drunk. When he reached the second floor, Phil’s front door was open and he was peeking out.

“Thought that was you,” he said in a soft, hushed voice. “Did you have a good time?”

“Yes,” Dan said. “It was great. What about you, did you have a good day?”

“Yeah, I did. I had my brother over.”

Phil smiled, but he didn’t look entirely happy. Dan felt like he should say something, but he didn’t know what. Had things been bad between Phil and his brother? Unlikely; Dan knew Phil adored Martyn beneath the lingering sibling rivalry.

“You free tomorrow?” Dan then asked.

“Technically, yeah.”

“What do you mean, technically?”

“Lower your voice, you’re going to wake the whole building,” Phil muttered.

“Sorry.”

Phil let out a sigh. “Go get some sleep, Dan. We’ll see each other tomorrow. Come over after your piano lesson.”

“Oh, right, I had forgotten about that,” Dan realized.

“Have you practised?” Phil asked him teasingly.

“ _Yes._ ”

Phil smiled again, softer this time.

“Goodnight, Dan.”

“Goodnight.”

Dan stayed until Phil had closed and locked his door before going upstairs.

Getting up the next day wasn’t easy. He wasn’t hungover per se, but he never slept well after he’d been drinking. Why did Frances always have to schedule their lessons before noon? Nevertheless, he was awake and ready at her door at eleven thirty.

“You look tired,” Frances commented.

“Yeah, I was out celebrating my birthday last night.”

“Happy birthday,” she said without much enthusiasm. “How old?”

“Twenty-six.”

“A good age.” Frances nodded. “That’s when my cheekbones finally decided to make an appearance. Before that, I looked like a baby.”

Dan was still a bit confused about their relationship. Frances wasn’t a friend, but she didn’t keep things strictly professional either. She alternated between prying into Dan’s business, and then not giving a shit. He never knew if he should ask her personal questions or not. After the whole ‘calling-Phil-his-Prince-Charming’ fiasco, he’d been afraid that she would ask more about Phil and he’d be forced to confess that he’d been overhasty, but she never did.

Frances was happy with his progress in learning the piano, and her eyes shone when she decided that he was ready for a more difficult level. She was a good teacher and obviously thought this was fun.

“Why don’t you teach piano professionally?” Dan asked.

“I think teaching people who are forced by parents or some syllabus would take the pleasure out of it,” she answered. “Just like I think that an uninspired teacher will take the pleasure out of learning.”

Dan nodded. It made sense, and he agreed.

“What do you do, then?”

Frances smirked, like she shared a joke with herself.

“I’m a teacher.”

“Oh, for God’s sake…” Dan laughed. “What do you teach?”

“It’s a university course about sexuality, gender, and power dynamics in religious spaces. Well, Christian, specifically. Very niche, I know, but at least only people who are interested show up.”

Apparently, everyone around him secretly had religious jobs.

“Sounds interesting,” he offered.

“Are you religious?” She asked.

“No. I’m a man of science.”

“They don’t have to contradict each other,” Frances said. Then she cleared her throat. “Right, let’s get on with it, shall we?”

On his way home, Dan fantasised about having a cheeky mid-day nap, before remembering that Phil was expecting him. Sleep then became the last thing on his mind.

Phil opened the door still dressed in his pyjamas.

“Come in. I’m hanging out on the couch today,” he said.

Despite the hot weather, there was a rumpled blanket in the couch. Dan sat down.

“You want coffee?” Phil called from the kitchen.

“Uh, yeah, and water, please.”

Phil came back with coffees for the both of them in one hand and a glass of water in the other. It looked somewhat dangerous. He gave Dan the glass and put down one of the cups on the table. When he sat back down in the couch with the other, he tucked his bare toes under Dan’s thighs.

He looked tired. A bit paler than usual, and he was squinting, probably without even realising it.

“Didn’t get much sleep last night?” Dan asked.

“No. I was up all night working,” Phil said and closed his eyes.

Dan tensed with interest. A priest working all night could mean a difficult sermon, but it could also mean like, exorcisms. If Phil was secretly performing exorcisms, Dan was actually going to shit.

“What were you working on?”

“I was on duty with the phone counselling,” Phil said and opened his eyes, somehow looking more tired than before closing them.

“Phone counselling? You mean like a suicide hotline?”

“Yeah.” Phil took a sip of his coffee. “Well, I mean, it’s not only for suicidal people. Anyone can call and just talk.”

“I didn’t know you did that,” Dan said.

Phil shrugged.

“I don’t do it that often, only like once every two months. It’s part of the job.”

Dan was quiet for a moment, considering.

“Has anyone ever tried to have phone sex with you?” He then asked.

“Dan!”

“It’s a valid question.”

Phil rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.

“There have been a few telling me I have a nice voice,” he admitted.

“It’s true,” Dan said. “You could charge good money with that voice, but then we’re talking a whole ‘nother kind of hotline.”

Phil blushed. Dan blushed too, because he had just indirectly told Phil he had a sexy voice. Which he had; Dan could imagine it, low and steady, whispering all kinds of filthy stuff in his ear. God, and Phil who usually kept a rather clean language… it would sound twice as delicious coming from him.

Dan glanced over at Phil. He was just sitting there, in his pyjamas. Unguarded. Dan could push him down on the couch right now. He could do it, and climb on top of him and clamour him with kisses before he’d even get a word out. He’d suck marks of affection on Phil’s neck and Phil would hold his hips, not sure if he should push him away or hold him closer, press them together. And then Dan would suck his cock and he’d come in like thirty seconds because he’s sexually repressed, and _–_

And Dan shouldn’t be thinking about this when Phil was sitting right next to him. Jesus. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“How was your piano lesson?” Phil asked suddenly, breaking the tension that had built up between them in just a few moments.

“Uh, good. But oh my god, my teacher is such a troll.”

“Yeah? What did she do?” Phil asked.

“I asked her if she had ever considered teaching piano professionally, and she went on and on about how she wouldn’t like it. So, I asked what she does, like what she works with, and she told me she’s a teacher.”

“What?” Phil asked with a snort. “So she does teach professionally?”

“Yeah, just not piano. She holds some class about gender and sexuality in Christian communities or something.”

“Interesting.”

“How do you approach that topic? As a priest, I mean,” Dan asked.

At once, Phil looked slightly uncomfortable.

“Uh, I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it,” he said.

“Shouldn’t you?” Dan shot back.

“I mean, I know what I think, but the Church has an official doctrine and I have to follow that.”

“So you keep your personal views out of church?” Dan asked, raising his eyebrows in a way he knew was frustrating. He couldn’t help himself.

“No,” Phil said with false calm. He was searching for his words, obviously stunned by Dan’s insistent questions. “I try to practice what I preach, but there are limits. If a gay couple asks me to officiate their marriage, for example, I can’t even if I would want to.”

“Yeah, exactly. I could never be part of a community like that, even if I wasn’t personally affected. And why would you want to be a part of that, if you don’t agree with their views?”

Dan knew that he should back down, that he shouldn’t turn this into an argument, but he wanted to know. Wanted, in a way, to put Phil in his place. To make him consider.

“I was a bit uncertain about that too, when I first decided to become a priest. But then Richard – my mentor – told me that change come from within the Church. It made me feel a bit like a spy, actually.” Phil smiled at the memory, then he became serious again. “We have done a lot of progress, you know. Just this year we took a huge step towards marriage equality.”

“Yeah, my grandma told me.”

He remembered his grandma calling him one cold February afternoon to tell him that in a couple of years he might be able to get married in a church, if he wanted; as if Dan was standing around with a husband-to-be and just waited.

Later, when they had ordered Chinese food, Dan asked, “Why did you become a priest?”

Phil stopped scooping food onto a plate and looked at him.

“Because I had a calling, of course.”

 “Right.” Dan had gone over half a dozen possible reasons in his head, and none of them had included a calling from God. “So, you just got a calling and then decided?”

“No, it took me quite some time to decide. I had other plans,” Phil said and returned to his food.

“Like what?”

Phil shrugged. “Nothing clear. I studied English language at university, but I didn’t know what to do with that. I considered maybe going into the film and television business, somehow. I was very interested in like, visual effects and things like that, but then I went to a seminary school in Manchester instead.”

“Manchester? When?” Dan asked, heart keening. He knew Phil had lived around there growing up, but then he had said he moved to York for university.

“Uh… I moved there in 2009, I think, and then,” Phil started counting on his fingers, “I did three years, plus one year with Richard… and then I moved to London in 2013.”

“I lived in Manchester at the same time,” Dan reminded him.

“ _What?_ You didn’t tell me that,” Phil exclaimed.

“Yes, I did.”

“No, you only said you went to Uni there for a while. I figured it was more recently.”

“Oh God, what if we have walked past each other without even knowing?” Dan said.

“I’d like to think I would have noticed another small tree running around.”

Dan laughed and shook his head. He wondered how things had been if they had met back then. In a way, he didn’t want to think about it. There was a chance he’d start feeling cheated by the universe, and he didn’t need another reason to be sick of his life.

“So, you’ve been a priest for four years now,” he said, steering the conversation away from Manchester and his disgraced academic career. Phil had studied for _six years_ ; Dan couldn’t compete with that. “That’s quite a while. Do you still feel like it was the right choice?”

“Yes. Sometimes I get a bit ‘what is my life?’, but there’s nothing I would want to do more than this,” Phil said.

“But I mean, there have to be some… sacrifices,” Dan said, trying to subtly coax Phil to bring up the subject of celibacy.

He didn’t know why he couldn’t just outright ask Phil about it. Several times he’d almost brought it up, but for some reason the words got stuck in his throat. It made him feel a bit seedy, like Phil would be able to tell he’d been thinking about it a lot. Like, _a lot_. But it wasn’t like it was just sex that Phil was giving up; it was the chance of marriage and a family of his own. Dan could never do that, and he couldn’t wrap his mind around Phil deciding to make that sacrifice at the callow age of 22.

“Yeah, I guess,” Phil said. “I mean, I can’t just tweet about like, alien activity. I’m the face of the Church.”

“Alien activity?” All concerns for Phil’s potential blue balls were forgotten. Fucking _alien activity_ –

“A lot of people actually think that angels are aliens. Big light from the sky, weird looking creatures,” Phil told him.

“Do you believe that?”

“No. It’s a perfectly valid theory, but I think angels are angels and aliens are aliens.”

“So you do believe in aliens?” Dan tried to confirm.

“Of course,” Phil said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “I can’t imagine that God would create this infinitely big universe and then only create us humans. That’s like only making one family in The Sims.”

Dan tried to hide his smile by face-palming.

“The Sims, really? How did they ever allow you to be a priest?”

“What, I’m not gonna leave my personality at the church door,” Phil said, smiling. “Besides, I know priests with more unorthodox beliefs than me. I think you just don’t know a lot of priests. We’re very diverse.”

“I’m sure,” Dan said dryly.

They continued eating for a while, then Dan lightly kicked Phil’s leg under the table.

“Tell me something else.”

“Like what?” Phil asked.

“Anything. How do you feel about the multiverse theory?”

“I don’t know. It sounds a bit… absurd. But if the universe is infinite, it’s supposed to be possible. I struggle with the concept of infinity, to be honest. And eternity. I just don’t understand how something can go on forever, or exist forever without having been created, like God. It makes my head hurt.”

“Well, it’s called faith, not science,” Dan offered.

Phil looked at him with an unreadable expression.

“Richard used to say that too.” Then he looked away. “I don’t like it.”

“Why?”

“Just because you believe doesn’t mean you should stop using your brain.”

How different would it have been if Phil had been his priest when he grew up? That was another what-if that Dan didn’t want to explore, mostly because he knew his depraved mind would turn it into an unorthodox fantasy.

After dinner, the two of them lazed on Phil’s couch and decided to watch a movie. Phil started out with his legs thrown over Dan’s lap, but as the movie progressed he sat up and scooted closer. By then Dan’s heart was thrashing in his chest. Silently, Phil then leaned his head on Dan’s shoulder and Dan silently freaked out inside. Phil had to be oblivious, otherwise he was the cruellest man on Earth.

Phil nodded off twice, and the second time he slid off Dan’s shoulder and woke up with a startled “huh?”.

“Maybe you should go to sleep,” Dan suggested.

It was early in the evening, but Phil had been up all night. Dan had also been up early and was starting to feel sluggish. He hadn’t done anything that day really, except for his piano lesson; he hadn’t even updated his blog, which he normally did every day.

“If I’ll be able to,” Phil said. “I’m a night owl, so once I start staying up late I’m doomed.”

“And still you chose a job that makes you get up early almost every day,” Dan pointed out.

“Ugh, I know.” Phil whined and rubbed his eyes. “I’m the grumpiest person in the morning, too.”

“Come on, go to sleep,” Dan urged him.

Phil was sleepy and cuddly and hugged him for a long time before he left, because Phil apparently enjoyed torturing him.

Dan had the next day off, but he was tired after getting up early so he didn’t stay up for very long. He became restless under the sheets though, and couldn’t seem to find ease. He wondered if Phil had had any better luck. With a sigh, he flipped over to lie on his back and thought back on the day; thinking of Phil and his bare, hairy ankles sticking out from his pyjamas. He thought of how Phil had sat close to him, so close he could feel the warmth from his skin. He thought of Phil’s hair, soft against the side of his neck, Phil’s gentle hands and rosy lips. Dan’s hand slipped into his underwear, and his thoughts turned from memories to fantasy. Phil’s breathy moans in his ear, Phil’s soft kisses turned dirty. He thought of Phil’s cock, hot and heavy in his hands. He thought of Phil’s hands in his hair, guiding Dan’s head to where he wanted it. He thought of Phil fucking his throat and then coming on his face. He thought of Phil calling him a “good boy” and planting a fatherly kiss on his forehead. _Fuck_. Knowing that Phil was just downstairs made it all so much better. He tried not to think about Phil like that, but whenever he did, it was so… fucking… _good_. When he came, he slapped a hand over his mouth to suffocate a whine he couldn’t suppress. Would Phil have been able to hear him if he hadn’t?

***

Dan designed clothes of his own, sometimes. He had a sketchbook filled with ideas, but it was often stuffed away and hidden in a drawer. He’d only shown a few of his friends. He liked his designs, even if they weren’t the coolest or most original ones.

One day, as he was doodling on an old envelope, he drew a cross. Then a pair of hands, clasped together in prayer. It gave him an idea, and he dug out his sketchbook. He hadn’t really drawn anything lately, but now he felt the inspiration tickle his fingers.

In fashion, contradictory enough, he’d always liked religious touches; one of his favourite shirts from Riccardo Tisci featured the Virgin Mary and an upside-down cross (a bit edgy, but he supposed that suited him), and he enjoyed Dolce & Gabbana’s frequent use of holy iconography – but he had something more discreet in mind…

Soon enough, Dan found an ecclesiastical playlist online and started sketching. Admittedly, he wasn’t a great artist, but he liked how the designs turned out. He sketched black shirts with red buttonholes, jackets with red linings, long scarlet sashes to be loosely tied at the waist together with a tunic. All fashioned after a cardinal’s robes. Had it been done before? Probably. Dan didn’t care.

When he was done, he felt proud. He had taken religion’s intrusion into his life and channelled it into creativity. He wanted to show the sketches to someone. Should he show them to Phil? Or would he think they were blasphemous? Surely not… Dan wanted to show them to Phil. If Phil was offended, he was not above letting Dan know.

Dan padded down the stairs and knocked on Phil’s door. No answer. Of course, Phil was at work. He sent a text.

_‘When are you coming home?’_

He reread the text after it had been sent. How domestic it sounded.

 _‘Around 7, why?’_ Phil answered almost immediately.

_‘I want to show you something.’_

Like a child excited to show his drawing, he thought.

***

Phil came waltzing into Dan’s apartment just after seven.

“What was it that you wanted to show me?” He asked.

“Come,” Dan said and led him to his bedroom and makeshift office.

Phil sat down on the bed and Dan took his place next to him after picking up his sketchbook.

“I design clothes sometimes. I don’t know how cool or original they are, really, but I like to get my ideas out. I thought maybe you wanted to see,” Dan said, suddenly nervous. Phil wouldn’t laugh, he knew that, but he still wanted to impress him.

Phil flipped through the sketchbook, looking more interested than Dan expected.

“I don’t know much about fashion, but they look cool. I like them.”

Dan’s heart fluttered.

“The last ones were inspired by cardinal robes,” he told Phil. “That’s not offensive, is it?”

“I’m not Catholic, so I wouldn’t know,” Phil said with a shrug.

“I figured you were still bros, or whatever.”

“Who, me and the Pope?” Phil asked without lifting his gaze from the sketches.

Dan laughed.

“ _No_ ,” he said, “the Catholic and Anglican churches.”

“There is this one Franciscan monastery in Bolivia I’d like to visit, actually,” Phil said. “They have a dog who wears a habit. Wait, I have pictures.”

Phil handed the sketchbook back to Dan and took his phone out of his pocket. It didn’t take him long to find the photos, and yes, there it was; a Miniature Schnauzer dressed like a monk. Dan couldn’t help but let out an aww.

“Isn’t it cute?!” Phil asked, absolutely besotted.

“Phil, I don’t need this,” Dan whined. “I want a dog bad enough as it is without you showing me _that_.”

“I know, right? I want a dog so bad, but I work so much and dogs shouldn’t be alone for too long.”

“We could get one together and split custody,” Dan joked, even though it was exactly what he wanted.

Phil beamed at him.

“Yes.” Then he put his phone away. “You know what you should do?”

Stop making painful jokes?

“What?” Dan asked.

“Post your designs on your blog.”

“Uh, why?”

“It will show more of your creative side. People might be interested,” Phil said.

“You think so? Really? I’m not sure it would fit my aesthetic.”

“You could try. Just to get that personal touch.”

While Dan messed around with lighting and angles to photograph his designs, Phil chilled on his bed. He did that sometimes, just hung around and listened to Dan’s music. Sometimes he even brought his laptop and spent hours browsing on Dan’s bed or couch.

Dan glanced at him from time to time, where he lay outstretched over Dan’s bed. He looked relaxed, resting atop the same sheets Dan had touched himself under while imagining Phil with him. If he only knew…

Dan spent a good hour and a half in Photoshop, editing the pictures, and once he was done with them, he uploaded an older one to his blog. Underneath, he wrote about this new, possibly temporary, instalment to his content, and his personal thoughts regarding the piece.

The next day, his blog was overflowing with comments complimenting his designs and people telling him they were excited to see more. This had maybe been an excellent idea. He decided he should cook Phil dinner or something to thank him.

***

Dan was close with his grandma. His parents had been young when they had him and his grandma had helped out a lot, which made her feel like an extra parent sometimes. However, he had neglected calling her. Last time they’d seen each other was when Dan was home to celebrate the week before his birthday, and that was almost a month ago. After that, life had gotten in the way.

“I’m sorry,” he said through the phone once he finally rang her. “I’ve been really busy with this new project for my blog.”

It was true; he’d been sketching and uploading a lot between his work shifts.

“You mean the designs you’ve uploaded? They’re very beautiful, Daniel,” his grandma told him.

“Thank you,” Dan said and he was sure she could hear his smile.

“I didn’t even know you drew.”

“I’ve been doing it for a while. My friend Phil persuaded me to post them to my blog, and people seem to like them, so…” He shrugged, even if he knew she couldn’t see it.

“Is Phil the new friend I’ve seen on your Instagram?” She asked.

Dan hadn’t told her about Phil. Last time they spoke, Dan had still been so embarrassed he was dumbstruck on the subject.

“Yeah,” Dan said. “He’s a priest,” he added.

“Oh?” She asked, barely concealing her approval. “That’s nice. How did you meet?”

“He’s my neighbour.”

“Have you been to his church?” She asked and Dan regretted bringing it up at once.

“No. You know I don’t go to church anymore,” he said.

“I thought perhaps you’d think it was fun to see your friend in action.”

Yeah, of course he wanted to see Phil in action. Just not clerical action.

His grandmother’s words stayed with him though, and he became rather curious. And that was how he found himself standing on the steps of Phil’s church one faithful Tuesday in the middle of July.

Phil worked at St. Aelred’s Church. It was big, built in white stone, but quite simple. Dan had walked past it a few times without taking much note of it. He had never been inside either.

There was a nervous flutter in his stomach, but it wasn’t infatuated butterflies this time. This time, it was dusty moths stirring awake, like when forgotten clothes were suddenly retrieved from an old wardrobe.

As he entered the church, the sweltering heat of July was replaced by a cooler, more comfortable temperature. A sanctuary, indeed. His footsteps were made soundless by a red carpet that stretched up the aisle, but there was no way to make himself inconspicuous; he was a stranger, and a tall one at that. He felt the others’ eyes on him like burning irons pressed against his skin. He slid into a pew, together with some old ladies. They glanced at his ripped jeans and pastel pink nail polish (he probably should’ve removed it), but didn’t say anything.

Dan looked around the church. It was no Sainte-Chapelle, but it was beautiful enough. The high windows were made of multicoloured mosaics, rich paintings of saints and apostles adorned the walls, and in the front hung a gilded crucifix. Above the altar, golden letters spelled out the phrase _“Etenim Deus noster ignis consumens est”_. He didn’t know what it meant, but it looked intimidating.

With time, more people arrived. Dan had thought he was smart when he picked the midday sermon, as he thought most people attended in the morning or the evening, but he’d been wrong. The church was packed. It became a bit harder to breathe.

Then, Phil entered. Dan had expected to see him in his black cassock, but he was wearing different vestments now. Or maybe just more. Three or four layers, at least. He looked nothing shy of a small mountain. The outermost layer was an emerald coloured robe with intricate embroidery in golden thread; very majestic.

Dan hadn’t told Phil he was coming. He could pinpoint the exact moment Phil saw him; his speech faltered for a second, then his surprised expression turned into a smile and he carried on.

There hadn’t been any coherent expectations in Dan’s mind. Since finding out that Phil was a priest, he’d been convinced that it was a bizarre combination. But it wasn’t. While sitting there, listening to him, it became clear to Dan that Phil was in his right element. He remembered Phil telling him that he stepped into a role when he preached, and he could see that, but it surprised him how genuine the role was. It wasn’t like Phil was playing a part, but rather like he was projecting himself.

Dan stood up and sang with the others when it was time, but he didn’t bow his head in prayer. He just closed his eyes and listened to Phil’s voice, orotund and steady. Then, it was time for the Eucharist (Dan really should have checked the church’s schedule before coming here). He had accompanied his grandma to church a few times after he stopped going himself, but he couldn’t even remember the last time he had celebrated the Eucharist.

He supposed he could just sit this one out, but when Phil said that the ones who wished to partake could come forward and kneel at the altar, Dan just kinda stood up and followed the old ladies.

While standing in line to the altar, he became increasingly uncomfortable. He felt as if any minute someone would turn to him and tell him he should leave, that he didn’t belong there, that they knew he was faking. Well, he didn’t have to take the sacraments. When he kneeled next to the old ladies, he crossed his arm over his chest to signal that he only wanted to receive a blessing. Even an infidel could ask for that.

As Phil started giving the sacraments to the person furthest from Dan, he saw the person opening their mouth and Phil place the wafer directly on their tongue. Dan’s heart leapt in his chest. His former priest had never done that; he’d always placed the wafer on one’s hands.

While a deacon gave the first person a sip of wine, Phil moved onto the next person. He put his hand on their head, blessing them, before giving them a wafer. Then the deacon followed with the wine.

Dan’s arm dropped from his chest to his side. He wasn’t even going to pretend he didn’t know his hoe ass took an opportunity when he saw it. Here he was, kneeling. But not for God; he was kneeling for Phil.

Phil’s face revealed nothing as he looked down on Dan. He placed his hand atop Dan’s curls and blessed him. Dan’s entire body buzzed from the contact. Then, Phil removed his hand and picked up a wafer. Dan kept eye contact with Phil as he obediently stuck out his tongue. The atmosphere between them was crackling with static. When Phil had placed the wafer on his tongue, Dan expected that to be it. But to his and everyone else’s surprise, Phil passed the wafer plate to the deacon and took the wine from him. Dan’s heart beat erratically, so fast he was dizzy with it. Phil then held the cup to Dan’s lips and let the wine flow slowly into his mouth; staring into his eyes, into his soul. Then it was over; Phil exchanged the wine for the wafers and moved onto the next person.

Dan was glad he was already on his knees, otherwise they would have given out under him. Blood was rushing through his body, downwards, awakening parts of him that had no place in a church.

When his group was done at the altar, he hurried back to the pew where he could sit down and hide from Phil’s direct view. _Jesus, what was that?_ Dan didn’t hear another word of the sermon as he just concentrated on calming down and not pop a boner. By the time the sermon was over, he had managed to get some sort of grip on himself and his body.

People filed out of the pews and some left immediately while others lined up to exchange some words with Phil. Dan had planned to whisk away Phil for lunch, so he stayed as well. It felt weird to just sit in the pew though, so he got up and walked around the church, looking at paintings and the alike. After about fifteen minutes, Phil came up beside him. Dan’s heartrate picked up.

“Father,” he greeted with a nod, opting for a playful rendition of a God-fearing man.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Phil said and nudged Dan’s arm. Acting completely normal, as if that – whatever _that_ was – hadn’t happened.

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Dan replied before he turned to face him. Phil’s face was slightly pink; he must be warm under all those layers. “My grandma said I might enjoy ‘seeing you in action’.”

“Well, what did you think?” Phil asked.

“It was good. You were good.”

It was true; Phil was a good preacher. Better than most Dan had listened to in his youth. Seeing Phil like this almost felt like a privilege.

Dan could still feel the traces of the sparks between them. He wanted to ask Phil why he gave him the wine, but he was scared to put words on what had transpired.

“You wanna grab lunch or something?” He asked instead.

“Yeah, I’m starving. I just gotta get changed first. Come, I’ll show you my office.”

Phil’s “office” was smaller than Dan expected, and it was shared between the two priests (as evident by the two desks that were crowding the room). It also seemed to work as a dressing room for them, as its walls were lined not only with books but also cupboards. Phil opened one of the cupboard doors and revealed more vestments than the ones he was wearing.

Then, he started undressing – _right in front of Dan_. First, he took off the green drape, and then he had a long scarf around his neck and a rope at his waist. He removed them as well as the white robe he was wearing, and revealed to be wearing his cassock underneath. Dan expected him to stop at that, but he started unbuttoning his cassock as well.

Dan looked up into the ceiling. _God help him_.

“It’s a beautiful church,” Dan said to focus on something else.

“Thank you!” Phil said, as if it was him that had built it.

His pride wasn’t so strange though, considering he’d worked here for four years. Maybe it was like a second home to him. Did he breathe easier when he stepped through those heavy doors? Was this where he longed to be when he was stressed and uncomfortable?

“Is it old?” Dan asked, looking at the window, the panelling.

“No, not even 200 years old. It was established in 1826.”

“Really?” Dan’s eyes followed a thin crack in the wallpaper. “It sounds old. ‘St. Aelred’s’.”

“It is an old saint. St. Aelred of Rievaulx. The architect who built this church came from there and requested that it’d be named after him. And then, a hundred years later, another St. Aelred’s was built in York. Which makes more sense, since Rievaulx is located up there,” Phil explained, like a living history book.

“Wow, Phil, you have all the facts,” Dan said, somewhat amazed.

“Comes with the job.”

As Dan dared to look at him again, Phil had now ridded himself of his cassock and was wearing a black t-shirt with black shorts. He looked so good in black, but also – his knees. Dan loved them.

“You wear shorts under your cassock?” Dan asked.

“When it’s this hot,” Phil puffed. “I almost die every summer.”

Phil had hung his cassock and the other vestments very neatly on coat hangers. It was a stark contrast to his apartment, where he seemed to throw most of his clothes on the bedroom floor and left socks everywhere.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Phil answered and followed him out.

When they excited the church, it was even warmer outdoors than it had been when Dan went inside. Phil closed his eyes to the sun for a moment before continuing walking, and just like that he was a normal guy again. ‘ _Because I’m also a person’._ Yes, truly.

The duo didn’t have to walk far to get to a café which Phil favoured. Once they had ordered their food, they looked for a table and found one available outside. While Phil slid into his seat with uncharacteristic grace, Dan managed to tip over a chair that fell over another and both crashed to the ground with a loud clatter. All the other guests turned their heads and Dan’s face burned. He heard Phil laughed as he corrected the chairs, the asshole.

“Shut up,” he mumbled as he sat down across from Phil.

“Wow,” Phil said, looking delighted. “It’s a shame I’m not a vlogger like your friend Louise, otherwise I would’ve filmed that.”

“What would you even vlog about, daily bible passages?”

Phil looked slightly annoyed, but he was still smiling.

“ _’Do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father.’_ First Timothy five and one,” Phil said, playing along.

“Alright, show off,” Dan told him. “Not everyone can quote the entire Bible.”

“You gotta step up your game,” Phil said flippantly.

Dan grinned. There was a glass with rolled up napkins on the table; he took one and started to pick it apart. Between the erotic Eucharist and his embarrassing chair-spectacle, Dan was feeling quite jittery. He saw Phil’s eyes flicker downwards to his fingertips.

“I like your nails,” Phil said, a bit too quickly to be casual.

“Uh, thanks.”

What was this? Was this Phil’s attempt at reaffirming that he accepted people like Dan? Did he think Dan needed the reminder after seeing him perform his duties as a priest?

God, Dan was tired of his brain sometimes. It was a simple compliment – nothing more, nothing less. Maybe pastel pink was just Phil’s favourite colour or something. (It wasn’t; it was blue. Dan knew that.)

A waiter came with their food, and the two of them began to eat in silence. Dan liked that Phil didn’t feel the need to talk all the time, and he too felt comfortable to just be in Phil’s company.

“Seriously though,” Dan said after he’d eaten at least half of his food, “how much of the Bible can you quote?”

“I don’t know,” Phil said through a mouthful of food. He swallowed. “I mean, I know the ones I use for arguments, and the classic ones like John three-sixteen, you know?”

Dan nodded. He did know; some things didn’t leave him even if he himself had left.

“And then I know some parts of my favourite passages because I’ve read them so many times,” Phil continued. “But there’s also a lot I know is in there, but I don’t know where or exactly what it says.”

Dan actually loved hearing Phil talking about the Bible, or religion in general. He was so passionate about it, and had original interpretations that Dan had never heard of before. Phil didn’t talk about it with him unless he asked though, which was on one hand very respectful and nice, but on the other hand it made Dan constantly worry that he was asking too much.

“What are your favourite passages then?” he asked.

“Oh, there’s so many. Um… the entire Book of Revelations is one,” Phil started, looking excited but also hard-pressed to remember.

“Of course that’s your favourite,” Dan said with a snort. “Insane doomsday prophecies, what more could you ask for?”

Phil took another bite of his food as an obvious excuse to mull over the question.

“I actually like the Song of Solomon a lot too,” he said once he had swallowed.

“The what?” Dan knew the Bible quite well but the name rang no bells.

“You know. _‘Your breasts are like fawns, twins of a gazelle…’_ No?”

“The fuck?”

“You don’t know it?” Phil asked, surprised.

“No!” Dan said. “What the fuck?”

“Oh. Well, it’s basically biblical erotica, but it’s very beautifully written.”

“It sounds like bad fanfiction to me,” Dan remarked.

“Hey, you can’t say that. It was written by a king,” Phil half-heartedly protested.

“Was it the same king that tried to cut a baby in half?” Dan inquired. He remembered that story.

“That was just a test.”

Dan laughed. Jesus, this day was getting too much for him, and it had barely started.

After lunch, Dan walked Phil back to the church.

“I’m glad you came,” Phil said.

There was a glow to him that Dan didn’t quite recognize, until he realised that Phil was touched. Dan hadn’t thought much of his visit to the church, but Phil had been genuinely moved that he came.

“Yeah, no problem. It was nice,” he said in return.

Dan just hoped Phil wouldn’t misinterpret his intentions and start lobbying him now, thinking that he could bring him back into the fold.

When he came home, he looked up the Song of Solomon online (the beautiful bible his grandma had given him had been left behind in his childhood room). He chose The Message, which he knew was Phil’s preferred edition of the Bible. It was a long “song”, and at times complicated, but Dan found himself enjoying it. Sure, sometimes it was a bit cringeworthy ( _‘Your hair flows and shimmers like a flock of goats’_ ), but he could see what Phil liked about it. It was rather romantic of him, but also sad; this was a story about highly passionate love, which was something Phil had renounced. Did he ever regret it? Did he read these declarations of love, his favourite part of the Bible, with a bittersweet taste in his mouth, thinking about how it could never be for him?

However, one part hit a bit too close to home. _‘Restless in bed and sleepless through the night, I longed for my lover. I wanted him desperately. His absence was painful.’_ It was like God was looking down on Dan and saying, “That’s right, I know you think about Phil holding you when you try to sleep”. A few other parts hit close to home in a different way, and he wrote down the verses on his phone. Maybe he’d bring them up with Phil sometime.

***

Phil called him one day and asked if he had anything that needed to be washed cold.

“Uh… what?” Dan responded, because _what_.

“I’m washing a shirt and it’s the only one, so I thought maybe you had something you wanted to throw in,” Phil explained.

“What colour?” Dan asked, mostly to stall while coming to grips with Phil wanting to do his laundry.

 _What kind of domestic intimacy…_ He seemed determined to cross every boundary that helped keep Dan’s sanity intact.

“Black.”

Ah, fuck it. Dan’s sense of self-preservation was spotty at best when it came to Phil.

“Yeah, I have a shirt,” he said.

“Okay, come down to the laundry room with it,” Phil instructed before hanging up.

Dan dug out a black shirt from the bottom of his laundry basket; since it needed to be washed cold and he hadn’t really had opportunity to wash it, it had spent more time in the basket than in his closet.

He cast a quick look in the mirror before going down to the basement where the laundry room was.

“Hello,” he greeted Phil.

“Hi!” Phil said. “Just put it in.”

Dan snorted.

“Phil…”

Phil turned to him.

“What?”

“’Just put it in’? Really?”

“You’re the only one who thinks like that!” Phil accused, as if he wasn’t laughing at accidental innuendos as often as he made them.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing? If you ruin my shirt, I’ll strangle you,” Dan said and put his shirt into the washing machine.

“ _Yes_. I’m not some helpless bachelor,” Phil said and started filling the washing machine with detergent. Dan enjoyed watching him.

When they both went upstairs, Dan followed into Phil’s apartment instead of going back to his own. Walking into the kitchen, he saw a small stuffed lion chilling on the dinner table.

“What’s that?” He asked, picking it up.

“That’s Lion the lion,” Phil said. “I had it when I was little. I’m telling the story of Daniel in the lions’ den to the children on Sunday, and I’m bringing it as a prop. They might like it.”

“You teach Sunday school?” Dan asked, surprised. His priest had never done that; it had only been some mums from the congregation.

“No, I’m just visiting. Samuel thinks that it’s important for the children to get to know us at an early age,” Phil said. Dan raised his eyebrows, and Phil glared at him. “Not like that.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your eyebrows said something,” Phil pointed out.

“My eyebrows are innocent,” Dan said, and saw Phil’s expression turn slightly amused. “I studied law; I’m not afraid to take this case to court.”

Phil couldn’t help but smile. _Bingo._

Dan put the lion back on the table. He tried to imagine Phil interacting with children, using the stuffed lion to tell them the story of Daniel, maybe using ye olde flannelgraph. It made him all soft inside.

“Are you good with children?” He asked as they walked into the lounge and flopped down on the couch.

“I’d say so. They like me and I like them,” Phil said.

Dan could see it all in his mind’s eye; Phil hoisting a small child on his broad hip, or on his shoulders. He could see them standing together over a bassinet, cooing at a sleeping baby. _Their_ sleeping baby. Or what about several children, with them, on a picnic blanket in the park? In just a matter of seconds, his brain flashed him with all these images, lending him a fair mirage. He knew it wasn’t something he should even allow himself to think about, knew it was something he’d have to press back into that dark, dusty part of his heart labelled ‘Broken Dreams’ and pretend that the thought had never occurred to him

“You’re a hit at Sunday school then?” He asked.

 “Mostly, I think. I try to make it as entertaining as possible” Phil answered. “Do you have any pointers? Since you went to Sunday school, I mean.”

“That’s right; you never went, you little heathen,” Dan ribbed him. “Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. It was all pretty boring, to be honest.”

“See, that’s why I need your expertise,” Phil told him.

“I don’t know what to tell you. The only good thing was the songs, stick with that. That’s something you got going for you; Christian songs are always such bangers.”

Phil laughed.

“No, seriously,” Dan continued, “they’re either catchy as hell or epic and terrifying. _We Want to See Jesus Lifted High_ was my fave.”

“I’ve always liked _Ave Maria_ ,” Phil said.

“Going down the epic route, nice,” Dan said with a nod. Then he cleared his throat. “Speaking of songs...”

Phil let out a small “Hm?”

“I read that thing you mentioned,” Dan said, then mentally applauded himself. _‘That thing you mentioned’, really?_ “The Song of Solomon,” he clarified.

“Oh,” Phil said, his eyes lighting up. “What did you think?”

“It was a bit weird. It was… he compared her hair to goats. A bit cringe, yeah? But it was good, in a way.” Dan licked his lips. “There was this one part, no, it was two, that kinda stood out to me.”

“Which was it?” Phil inquired.

“I have them on my phone, hold on… Here. ‘ _I ran out looking for him_ ,’ her lover,” Dan clarified quickly before continuing, “’ _But he was nowhere to be found. I called into the darkness—but no answer. The night watchmen found me as they patrolled the streets of the city. They slapped and beat and bruised me, ripping off my clothes. These watchmen, who were supposed to be guarding the city.’_ And then there was this other part… ‘ _I wish you’d been my twin brother, sharing with me the breasts of my mother. Playing outside in the street, kissing in plain view of everyone, and no one thinking anything of it.’_ It sounds a bit like a queer narrative. I know that’s not what it is, but it sounds like someone dealing with homophobia or, like, heterosexism,” Dan explained, feeling anxiety nip at his heart with every word.

Phil nodded, and Dan relaxed.

“I think that’s what I like about it. Most of the Bible needs context, but this can be, like, freely interpreted,” Phil said.

“I still can’t believe I didn’t know it though,” Dan said. He’d always had good biblical knowledge; a few weeks ago, he’d impressed Phil by reciting almost the entire Nativity from the Gospel of Luke.

“I guess it’s not the kind of thing they teach you in Sunday school,” Phil said with a smirk.

***

“I’m in love with Phil.”

For all that Dan had feared someone would bring it up, it was surprisingly easy to say. Relief rushed through him the second the words left his mouth. He really needed to talk about this.

“Oh,” Louise said without sounding surprised. “Does he feel the same?”

They were at an art show, pretending to be intellectuals. Louise had been invited and brought Dan along with her. As they were strolling through the gallery and looking at the art pieces, there had been a lull in conversation and the confession had just slipped out.

“No. I don’t think so, at least.” There had been times Dan had considered the possibility, like that thing in the church. That was strange, wasn’t it? Or that thing with the laundry. But he always reached a negative conclusion. He was probably just projecting his own feelings onto Phil. “It doesn’t matter anyway; he’s celibate,” Dan continued, while looking at a photograph of a man sticking a riding crop up his butt. This was where his artistic intellect failed him.

“Really? God, Dan, I’m sorry,” Louise said and her specific brand of sympathy was so sweet.

Then she looked at the picture Dan was looking at and burst out laughing. People turned to look at them, and Dan hushed her while she tried to hide her laugh behind her hands.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Just… his face.”

Then she giggled again. And yeah, the man in the picture looked excited, like he had won the lottery or something.

The two of them moved on, and luckily the other pictures were rather tame compared to the riding crop one.

“So, what are you going to do about Phil?” Louise asked when she had calmed down.

They had moved on to paintings now, some pretty and others quite bland.

“I don’t know,” Dan said with a shrug.

It wasn’t like he had a plan. What would that even look like? Plan A: Get Over Phil. Plan B: Die. He honestly had no idea what he was doing.

“Maybe you should start dating more,” Louise suggested.

That sounded like a bad idea. Dan didn’t have the best luck in the dating department, and he doubted it would be better with him comparing everyone to Phil and invariably found them lacking. Everyone who wasn’t Phil would always be lacking.

“I think I will just… wait it out,” Dan said with a sigh.

He couldn’t quite envision a version of himself that didn’t love Phil though. They had known each other for what, four months? How had Phil managed to get so completely under his skin in that time? How had he become so vital?

“Well, you’ve been hanging out a lot. Maybe you just need some distance,” Louise said.

“Yes, exactly,” Dan agreed, even though he knew he’d never take the steps necessary to put distance between them.

Their friendship was more important to him than his stupid feelings. They fit together, somehow. He couldn’t sacrifice that. Maybe his feelings would fade into background noise eventually. They had to, even if he could never get over Phil completely.

The relief Dan felt soon mixed with something else; premonition. Something was coming. By putting his feelings into words, he’d made them real. This wasn’t something passing. This was something that had gotten deep inside of him and anchored itself to his heart.

He and Louise had reached a painting that was just grey. Nothing else, just a canvas completely painted in the exact same shade of grey. He read the description the artist had attached: _“Grey is the epitome of non-statement. It does not trigger off feelings or associations, it is actually neither visible nor invisible... Like no other colour, it is suitable for illustrating ‘nothing’.”_ It was true; when Dan looked at the painting, he felt nothing but calm. Just for a moment, he could be calm.

***

That night, Dan had to face it: he was so in love with Phil that he didn’t know what to do with himself. He knew that. But he hadn’t wanted to admit how much it hurt; being so close to someone who was so good, so right for him, and still not really be with them.

It was like he’d jumped into a too-deep plunge pool, but closed his eyes as he jumped and pretended that he’d never reach the surface – but he had landed in the cold water and now he was desperately reaching for the bottom, which was unreachable despite his long legs. He fought to keep his head above the surface, but he had to tread the water with care as any ripple he created threatened to drown him.

Sometimes he really thought he would drown in all the love and pain that he felt. People had died from heartbreak, hadn’t they? Like Johnny Cash.

Dan was a sensitive person, and he cried all the time (like when he was stressed, or when he listened to his favourite music). Yet, this was the first time he cried over Phil. This was also the first time he cried because he wanted someone so much; he’d only ever cried over love when it ended, never before it had even begun. But here, shrouded in darkness, he choked out a sob before feeling warm, salt-tasting tears trickle down his face. It hurt, it hurt so much – a thousand thorns piercing his heart.

In the movies, this was always the most beautiful scene. Not in reality. There was no string orchestra in the background, no soft glow illuminating a glittering teardrop. There was just him, a blubbering mess, pressing his hands to his wet face. The tears weren’t solitarily sliding down in neat lines; big, fat drops jostled each other on their rush to push through his tear-ducts, gushed out of him like a leaky faucet. There was no end to them. His head was heavy, his temples thudding with a headache, and he could barely breathe through his snot. Yeah, no. No beauty here.

He supposed Phil would find it beautiful if it existed in a religious context. That’s what all the songs and paintings depicted, wasn’t it? That’s what all the saints felt before they were beheaded or burned alive or mauled by heifers. _The Holy Suffering_. But Dan’s suffering wasn’t holy, and his cause wasn’t noble. He was only love’s martyr, in the most human way possible. It was all there, not just the love that was pure and fluffy. His greedy heart was well-acquainted with gritty lust and ugly possessiveness.

Dan thought of all the parallel universes potentially existing out there. There had to be at least one where he and Phil were together. Maybe one where Phil had become an English professor and Dan was a lawyer, or maybe one where Dan had followed the actor dreams of his youth and Phil was a film maker.

It didn’t matter. They probably didn’t exist, and if they did, they wouldn’t comfort him. He still had to deal with this universe. He still had to bite down on reality, no matter how bitter it tasted.

Eventually his crying subsided, but the pain didn’t. It was radiating from his chest, so strident it was almost tangible. Everyone else in the building had to feel it too, but muted, like music playing through a wall. Phil would feel a small tug at his heartstrings without knowing why.

It was late. Dan tried to sleep, but it was difficult to calm down. His breathing was still a bit ragged. Could he turn back from this? He had tried so hard to be cool about this whole unrequited love business, to shrug at his feelings and let them sit, wait them out, let them fade naturally. He had only ended up denying it all to himself, and now the pain had increased by the sevenfold, blowing up inside of him like a dam breaking.

He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t just… extract himself and get over Phil. He really couldn’t do that. At the same time, he wasn’t sure he was strong enough to stand this in the long run.

***

Dan had a bad dream. In his dream, he was standing in a packed church and he had difficulty breathing. He was holding hands with his husband to be, who didn’t have a face. Phil was officiating the ceremony, reading jumbled Bible verses about how love is patient and kind. Everyone was happy, everyone was smiling. Dan’s heart was bleeding, spilling out all over his suit and the church floor. No one noticed. He didn’t want to do this. He looked at Phil; he wanted to marry him, not the fucking Slenderman. He tried to withdraw his hands from his husband’s hold, but couldn’t. They were trapped in an iron grasp, and he knew there was no way out.

“You may kiss,” Phil said.

Dan glanced at his faceless husband, but he didn’t make a move so Dan didn’t either. The grip on his hands just tightened, and it hurt, it hurt so much. Dan started crying. Phil was beaming at him, unaware.

It was a stupid dream. Laughable, even. Dan wasn’t crying when he woke up (thankfully; he’d done enough crying), but he felt uneasy and had trouble going back to sleep. _Come on, it had just been a bad dream, not a goddamn prophecy._

He ended up just slipping in and out of consciousness until his alarm went off. The last thing he wanted was to drag himself to work, but he had to. The world didn’t stop spinning just because he was having a crisis. He wished he could just… lie down for a few days and recoup.

***

Phil noticed he was a bit off, of course. He put a hand on Dan’s shoulder one evening and asked him if he was okay. He told Phil he was just stressed out about work, which wasn’t untrue; heartbreak had made him irritable and, while he wasn’t making any scenes, one customer had complained about his service to the manager and he was a bit under scrutiny. Phil pulled him into a hug and then held him for the majority of the movie they were watching, and it was the best hour of Dan’s miserable life.

Dan didn’t believe in karma, but it felt like the universe was compensating him for all his hardship when he found a very promising email in his inbox one day in early August. It was from a person named Lo, who worked at _Peitho Designs,_ which was an independent clothing brand. It wasn’t one of Dan’s favourites, but he was still barely breathing when he opened the email. What if they wanted to sponsor him or send him clothes or something?

What he found in the mail was unexpected and so, so much better; Lo had seen the designs he had posted on his blog and wanted to discuss possibly buying the rights to them. Dan’s fingers were shaking with anticipation as he typed out a reply. He proofread it at least half a million times before sending _. Oh God, oh God, oh God_. This was happening! Maybe. Nothing was decided yet. He considered calling Louise to freak out together with her, or maybe run downstairs and harass Phil, but then he decided to wait until he actually had something to show for it.

The response from Lo came within an hour. Ey suggested that they’d meet at a café in central London in two days, which Dan readily agreed to. Then he had to call Louise.

After talking with Louise for forty minutes, smiling so hard his jowls ached, he tried to remember if Phil was home or not. He basically knew Phil’s schedule by heart because he was a major creep, but whatever.

Phil wasn’t at home, which in retrospect was good, because after calming down, Dan realised he wanted to wait to tell Phil until he had something real. While Phil would probably make a great pillar of support to him while he was freaking out, he had an even bigger desire to impress Phil, to tell him “look what I’ve managed to do” and get that proud, pleased smile in return. Besides, it had been Phil’s idea to post the designs to begin with, so if the meeting didn’t pan out, he might feel disappointed.

Dan didn’t see much of Phil until the day of the meeting, which was good because he’d probably blurt out the surprise before it even was a deal. It was easier to control what you said over text than in real life, after all.

Dan was frantically digging through his wardrobe. He hoped to find something that would impress Lo and convince em to buy his designs, but everything looked cheap or like he was trying too hard. Where was his black button-up shirt? Hadn’t he washed it? Was it still in the laundry basket? Then he remembered; Phil had washed it, not him.

Dan ran down the stairs and knocked on Phil’s door. The shirt had to be there, Phil had washed it. Oh God, what if he had discoloured it or something and that’s why he hadn’t given it back?

Phil opened the door and smiled when he saw Dan.

“Do you have my shirt?” Dan asked abruptly.

“Which one?”

“Uh… how many do you have?”

When had they swapped shirts? They had, he could remember that, mostly because there were a few splotches of colour in his otherwise monochrome closet, but he couldn’t quite remember how it had come about. Were they really that intertwined? On the other hand, Phil had done his laundry. It didn’t get more intertwined than that.

“Like, three.”

“I meant the black one,” Dan said, which probably didn’t help much considering his style. “You, uh, washed it.”

“Oh, yeah. That one. Hang on.” Phil turned, but only took one step before he turned to face Dan again. “Do you want to come in?”

“I can’t. I’m meeting someone soon,” Dan explained. He was bursting with excitement and nervousness, but he still didn’t want to tell Phil about it in case the meeting was fruitless.

“Oh. Okay.”

Phil disappeared for a few moments then came back with Dan’s shirt.

“Here you go,” Phil said and handed it to him.

“Thank you. I really want to make a good impression,” Dan said, and right, he was supposed to keep the cat in the bag. Something about Phil just made it very, very hard not to tell him everything. Priest superpowers, probably.

“Good luck then,” Phil said.

Oh, if he only knew. He was standing there, face blank. Probably upset that Dan wouldn’t tell him exactly what was going on. But if things went well, Dan would come back here and tell him everything, really surprise him, and then they could celebrate together.

Dan went upstairs and changed, then he realised he was late. As always. Fuck. He spent money that he didn’t really have on a taxi so that he wouldn’t turn up to the meeting all sweaty and gross.

When he arrived at the café, he was so nervous that he could hardly breathe, but at least he wasn’t sweaty.

It wasn’t difficult to spot Lo. Ey was sitting at a table in the middle of the café with a briefcase at eir feet. All dressed in white, ey contrasted Dan’s black attire. Dan was glad he had googled what ey looked like last night.

He walked up to the table, and Lo stood up. They were almost the same height, but then again, Lo was wearing heels.

“Daniel Howell?” Lo asked.

“Um, yes, hi,” Dan said and held out his hand.

After they had shaken hands and a waitress had taken Dan’s order (there was already a steaming cup of black coffee in front of Lo), the meeting began.

At first, Lo asked about his blog and his goals. It felt a lot like a job interview.

“Alright, Daniel,” ey said, “the designs that caught my eye were the ones you wrote were inspired by cardinal robes. They’re very beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Dan choked out and took a sip of his too-hot coffee to battle his dry throat.

“How did that idea come to you?” Ey asked.

“Um… you know,” Dan started while frantically rooting around in his brain for something to say. “I grew up religious. I’m not anymore but, uh… say what you want about organised religion, honestly, but their aesthetic is on point.”

Lo smiled at that, and Dan relaxed.

“Yes,” ey agreed, “although the Pope’s hat comes nowhere near our collections.”

Dan laughed and ey looked pleased.

“We are interested in buying the rights to your design, Daniel. That would mean it is ours, and you can’t use it and you can’t let anyone else use it,” ey explained.

“I understand,” Dan said, just a second before his head filled with questions. Damn. “Does that mean I have to take it down from my blog?” He asked.

“No. We actually have an offer for you,” Lo said and there was a glint in eir dark eyes.

“Oh?” Dan asked and no longer felt relaxed at all.

“We want you to wear the clothes at the Independent Fashion Show in October.”

“You mean… like on a catwalk?”

Lo smiled again.

“Yes, on a catwalk. You would of course have the right to post photos to your blog of the show, and the right to state that we bought the design from you.”

“That’s very generous,” Dan said.

“We want to offer opportunities to up-and-coming talents in the industry,” Lo said. Then ey opened eir briefcase and took out a wad of A4 papers. “It’s all here, in the contract. I suggest you look it over with a lawyer.”

Dan took the papers and flipped through them.

“Yeah, I will,” he said. He probably wouldn’t hire a lawyer just for this though. It was a few years ago now, but he had actually studied law and knew a few of the common catches.

“Great. If you could get back to me at the end of the week, that will be fine,” Lo said and drained the rest of eir coffee in one go.

Ey professionally and briskly ended the meeting, and Dan was left feeling awe-struck and jumbled. It had all happened so fast, and now he was here with a contract and no bag to put it in. But most importantly, he had been given a golden opportunity. He couldn’t believe his luck; once the realisation settled on him, he was ready to burst from excitement.

He called Louise on his way home and she screamed. Dan wanted to scream too, but he was in public. However, he caught himself taking jumping steps down the escalators to the tube station.

God, he couldn’t wait to tell Phil. He texted him, asking him to hang out. Phil was free today, he knew.

_“I can’t, I’m sorry :( I’m really busy.”_

Dan’s heart sank. Should he tell him now, over text? No, he wanted the whole thing; to see Phil’s eyes light up with excitement, to get one of those special Phil-hugs that felt like they never ended. It was worth it even if he had to wait until tomorrow.

Dan spent most of his afternoon alternating between texting his friends the good news and studying the contract. It was written in a longwinded, complicated language that took him ages to decipher.

The giddy excitement that had coursed through him after the meeting had subsided quite a lot, and he couldn’t help but feel disappointed that Phil had been busy. Apparently. It wasn’t weird, really. Phil had busy days sometimes. Still, Dan could faintly hear the familiar sound of Final Fantasy coming from downstairs.

***

On Friday that week, Dan went over to _Peitho Designs’_ office and signed the contract together with Lo and cleared up some questions. When he came home, he looked at Phil’s door sadly as he passed it on his way up to his own apartment. Phil apparently had a very busy week; he was unavailable every day and answered his texts late. Dan started feeling a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing. Was Phil ignoring him? Surely not…

Then, as the weekend trickled over into a new week, Dan sent Phil a text that he never answered. And with a sinking feeling in his stomach, Dan realised that Phil really was ignoring him. He’d feared as much, but he hadn’t wanted to jump to conclusions. Had Dan done something? He tried to think back, and suddenly he could pin-point at least a dozen moments that could have been crucial. Was it because Dan had acted weird in church? Maybe Phil was uncomfortable with him being some kind of sex-crazed freak who accosted poor Phil when he tried to give him the Eucharist. But that was several weeks ago… Phil hadn’t shown any sign of thinking it was a problem before. Or maybe it was one of those times Dan had been overly critical of religion. Maybe Phil felt rejected.

Anger flowed through his veins and pooled in his heart. Phil should’ve said something if he had a problem with Dan instead of just ignoring him like a coward. It was unfair.

Maybe Phil had figured out Dan was in love with him, and suddenly wasn’t okay with Dan’s sexual orientation anymore, like a hypocrite. So many people were okay with gay people until they themselves turned out to be the object of desire. Then, all of a sudden, it was disgusting. Dan really, really hoped that wasn’t the case. He would not be able to stand it if Phil turned out to be like one of those people. Phil was so good, so open-minded… But he was also a priest, Dan reminded himself.

 _Or maybe…_ No, that was impossible. The thought wouldn’t leave Dan’s head though; maybe Phil had feelings for him, and didn’t know how to deal with them. The anger quickly drained from Dan’s heart. He knew what effect his soft features and plump lips had on men; he had convinced self-proclaimed straight guys to make an exception before. And Phil stared at him, sometimes, when he thought Dan wasn’t looking. It wasn’t impossible.

There was a flicker of hope in Dan’s heart, but it quickly died away. If Phil liked him, if he made an exception and broke his vows, would he ever forgive himself? Or would he shamefully hate himself and regret it? Dan didn’t want that. He’d rather be nothing at all to Phil than a regret. And even if Phil didn’t regret it, he would be disappointed in himself. Dan didn’t want that either. It was so much more important to him that Phil was happy and at peace with himself. Besides, all signs pointed to that if Phil liked him, he’d ignore him. Dan wanted that least of all. Phil must’ve thought of this before he took a vow of chastity, right? Imagined the possibility of lust, of love? Of how he would tackle it… was it with distance?

Of course, it could be that it wasn’t something Dan had done, but simply Dan as a person. He knew that after one got past his awkward shell, he was quite captivating. He said the most scandalous things and filthy jokes, and people was drawn to that indecency. He was a good listener and an even better story-teller, making even everyday occurrences sound like a minor adventure. But he knew, better than anyone, how exhausting he was. He even exhausted himself. Soon enough, new friends tired of him and his intricate stories, and his inappropriate jokes stopped being funny and started sounding more like a cry for attention. And his fluctuating mental health was just a bonus that people decided they couldn’t deal with. And now, Phil was one of those people who had tired of him and discarded him.

 _Under love’s heavy burden do I sink,_ Dan thought. And just like Romeo, he poisoned himself. Not with actual poison (although that sounded tempting the more he thought about it), but with all these dark, stressful thoughts, mixed with sweet memories of Phil. He thought of the way Phil had smiled at him when he opened the door last week. It hurt to think about, but he couldn’t stop himself. His memories were all he had, except for a few of Phil’s T-shirts (that he most definitely didn’t sniff, thank you very much). All he wanted was to run downstairs, wrench Phil’s door open and beg him to take him back. But Phil’s entire apartment seemed to emit a hostile silence that just grew heavier and heavier every day until Dan didn’t even want to leave his apartment. But he had to, of course; he had to work. Every time he hurried past Phil’s apartment, he was scared that Phil would exit in that exact moment and they’d have to face each other.

He feared leaving and feared coming home. This wasn’t how he had imagined his fresh start in London. He was going places, he was; he had just sold a design of his own and was going to be part of a fashion show. Things were really going well. Still, he couldn’t be happy about it, because every day was just one big fog of agony which he had to push through until he could sleep undisturbed for a few hours before waking up to the same fog again. Love was cruel. This was exactly why he didn’t want to fall in love. His last relationship had ended badly, but had it been as painful as this? He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t know, really; his whole world view had turned distorted by the constant pain. Phil’s presence in his life felt more lasting than it had been, and their last interaction felt like years ago. Heartbreak had aged him by eons.

Dan was tired of himself, honestly. Overthinking, overreacting – a pathetic mess. Phil had been ignoring him for what, a week? Already he was so caught up in his pain that he couldn’t do anything except the most basic tasks. Even his blog had suffered; the updates were irregular and lacked their usual care. He had written a post explaining that he had a lot of work right now, but that was a lie. He had just as much free time as always, and he spent most of it lying in bed and listening to sad music. Crying, occasionally, with his face pressed into his pillow so that no one would hear.

Damn Phil. Why did he have to do this? Why did he have to come into Dan’s life and blow him away and then just leave like it was nothing, while Dan was left completely dazed. Dan had thought he was special, but maybe Phil had just been lonely. Maybe Phil had befriended him out of pity when Dan wrote that note inviting him in, and just couldn’t stand it anymore.

Dan sighed. Every time he tried not to think about this, the thoughts spun around his head faster. And he had no one to share them with. He guessed he could call Louise, since she already knew, but he remembered how his love had suddenly felt so real when he had voiced it. He didn’t want this rejection to become real like that as well. He was still hoping that Phil would turn up at his door again and everything would be like before.

If he’d been lonely before he met Phil, he felt even lonelier now.

***

Dan called his mum and told her about the contract with _Peitho Designs._ She was happy for him, congratulated him and sounded truly proud. Part of Dan’s own pride in his success returned, and he talked excitedly about the upcoming fashion show until he was sure his mum didn’t really follow.

“Sorry,” he said then. “I’m just so excited.”

“You should be. This is a great opportunity, and you really deserve it,” his mum told him and his heart swelled.

“Thanks.”

“Will you come home soon? You haven’t visited since Christmas,” she said.

 “I don’t know… I don’t have a lot of free time,” he said.

He always felt guilty for trying to get out of visiting, but he didn’t like it a whole lot, despite how much he loved his family.

“Just a weekend,” his mum said, trying to convince him.

Dan supressed a sigh and ran the upcoming month through his head. There were a few days in the beginning of September which he had free, but he had initially reserved them for Phil, since he knew Phil would be on duty with the phone counselling. That day they had spent on the couch had been cosy, and Dan had been looking forward to an encore. _Guess that wouldn’t happen_.

“I have a few days off the first week of September,” he offered to his mum.

“Which dates?”

“From fifth to seventh.”

She was silent for a few second, and Dan heard the rustle of her flicking through her calendar.

“That would work perfectly,” she said then.

“Alright, I’ll come then,” Dan decided.

Perhaps a change of scenery was what he needed to distract himself from Phil.

***

Later, there was a knock at Dan’s door. He almost had a heart attack, because he could recognise it as Phil’s knock. Phil was here, and wanted to see Dan.

Dan cast a quick look in the mirror, and decided he looked okay. It was afternoon and he had just come home from work. He was tired, but at least he was dressed and had showered earlier today.

He opened the door and there was Phil. Dan’s heart jumped. Goddamn, he was so beautiful.

“Hello,” he said with a strained smile.

“Hi,” Dan said and tried to appear cold even though his heart was going on a rampage. He was still mad, even if every part of him told him to forgive Phil and rejoice in the fact that he had turned up at all. No, not that easily.

“Are you busy?”

“No,” Dan said and resisted the urge to add ‘but apparently you are’.

“Then you are free to hang?” Phil said and seriously, was he acting like everything was normal between them?

A thought came creeping; maybe everything _was_ normal between them… No. Dan hadn’t imagined it. Phil had been ignoring him.

“Sure,” Dan said and let Phil inside. After all, if he was going to explain, he would hardly do it in the corridor outside.

Phil walked in and looked around, as if it had been years rather than just over a week since he’d been there. Then, he turned to Dan.

“I haven’t seen you in ages,” he said as if it wasn’t his fault. “How have you been?”

“Um, good,” Dan said. “ _Peitho Designs_ has bought one of my designs and are going to use it in their collection at the Independent Fashion Show. And I’m going to model it.”

“Dan!” Phil said, his eyes lighting up just like Dan had predicted. “That’s great! Congratulations.”

Phil pulled him into a hug, also like he had predicted. Nothing of it felt special, like it could have. That made it even worse.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Phil asked when he let Dan go.

“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone,” Dan said and Phil immediately looked guilty.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy lately. You should have told me that you had big news and I would have made time for it,” he said, as if this was somehow Dan’s fault.

They ended up on Dan’s couch, playing Mario Kart, like so many times before. It felt so natural that it was unnatural. What had been going on for the past week should be noticeable in something else than that they sat further from each other than usual. The familiarity of it was irritating. For the first time, Dan didn’t want Phil’s company and wished he’d leave. If he as much as laid a hand on Dan’s arm like he did sometimes, Dan would explode. His entire skin felt prickly whenever Phil moved, like it was preparing itself.

When Phil reached for the remote to turn the volume down, Dan looked at his hands and saw small slits on and around his fingertips.

“What happened to your fingers?”

“Papercuts,” Phil answered and looked down on his hands, studying them like he’d forgotten the cuts were there. “I... I’ve been reading the Bible a lot lately.”

More like flicking through the Bible, urgently enough for the pages to slice into his skin again and again, without him stopping. Dan wondered if those pages were lined with blood now, like punishing bookmarks.

“Looking for something?” Dan asked.

“Yes,” Phil said, and for a moment he looked lost. Then his face adopted that carefully blank expression he had whenever he wanted to pretend everything was fine.

Dan didn’t ask what it was Phil was searching for. He wasn’t sure if Phil would tell him even if he did. Phil was here now, with him, but the feeling of drowning was stronger than ever.


	3. Chapter 3

_“I have built, deep in my heart, a chapel filled with you.”  
– Marcel Proust_

* * *

 

Dan wished he could have stood his ground, been mad at Phil and demand he’d explain himself, but he didn’t. The only thing greater than his heartache was the fear of scaring Phil away if he was too confrontational. Which, he knew made him pathetic, but the D in Dan didn’t stand for dignity.

He thought about what Louise had said about putting some distance between him and Phil. He’d gotten a taste of it, and he hated it. He didn’t want it. Not that their current situation tasted any sweeter… Their reunion had been something of a pyrrhic victory.

Things were much like before. Or at least some kind of ghost of it. Phil’s company was as good as ever, but still, Dan was afraid to be near him again. He was guarding himself automatically. So many times, there were something he wanted to say or ask, but he ended up closing his mouth. Or offered a filtered version. So many things he’d been comfortable discussing with Phil before. It wasn’t that he distrusted Phil or anything, it was more like he didn’t want to expect too much or invest in something temporary. As if he wasn’t already invested…

It was a strange sensation, to yearn while being scared.

Phil was aware of the atmosphere between them. He had finally stopped pretending that everything was normal; he too seemed to measure his steps. How close was too close, how far was too far?

Dan was tired of it. He just wanted things to go back to the way they had been before. Could they? Sometimes things didn’t work out no matter how much you wanted them to, and then it was better to leave them be. Let the fermentation process begin, turning their friendship into acquaintance. The thought made Dan’s stomach turn.

It would almost have been better if they were fighting, or if their interactions were unbearable. But they weren’t. Everything was just subdued and bleak, as if their friendship had a concussion.

Leaving London for a few days to visit his parents was a blessing, like a vacation from his real life.

It was so strange that so much had happened in his life but at his parents’ house, everything was the same as the last time he visited.

On the wall in the lounge, there was a photo of him when he was nine. He was actually a cute kid before puberty made his face weird and his limbs awkward. Despite considering this trip a vacation from his real-life troubles, he couldn’t help but send a picture of the photo to Phil over snapchat.

_“9 yo dan”_ he captioned it. In response, he got a cute selfie with the caption _“He’s a keeper”._ His heart fluttered, and he put his phone away.

The remainder of the day was spent with his parents. His brother wasn’t with them; he was at university, making them proud. Dan tried to be happy for his sake. Besides, Dan was making his parents proud too, degree or not. They were actually very interested when he told them about recent developments and about how Phil had convinced him to post his designs (and by extension, told them about Phil, but they already knew about him through Dan’s grandma). At times, he even had to explain terms and practises in the business for them. In return, his parents caught him up on what was going on in their lives, as well as lives of people he since long had stopped caring about.

It was all very nice. Nicer than he’d remembered.

Then night-time came. His room wasn’t small, really, but the walls felt too close. It all looked the same, just like the rest of the house, but this was déjà vu he didn’t enjoy. It was always like this; all his teenage angst and all the fights he’d had with his family had seemingly seeped into the walls, and as soon as he stepped inside they were coming out of the woodwork. His rest was uneasy, and he woke up with a headache.

The day ahead was filled with activities. First, they went to a showcase for his dad’s friend, who was a photographer. It was nice. The photos and their motives were pretty mundane, but everyone received a plastic cup of non-alcoholic cider upon arrival.

Then, they visited a farm shop, which, since when did his parents ever visit farm shops? But it had just opened, and they liked it. Supporting locally produced products and all that, which Dan could get behind. And it was a very cosy shop; if he ever lived a bit closer to the countryside, he’d probably favour it too.

Wow. He really was ageing.

In the afternoon, the went to Dan’s grandparents’ house for dinner. His grandma asked him about Phil, and he answered as concludingly as possible. He didn’t want to be reminded of Phil, he didn’t want to miss him, he just wanted to shovel delicious food into his mouth in peace.

In the evening, he played Bohnanza with his parents before going to bed. It was all very nice, like the day before. That was all he could say about this visit, apparently; nice. In May, Phil had gone to Orlando with his family, and came back rested and a bit sunburned. He’d looked happy. Meanwhile, Dan had to settle for “nice”.

It was a work in progress. It was better than it had been a year ago, and much, much better than it had been a year before that. Soon, he would too return to London happy and rested, instead of slightly relieved and feeling guilty for it.

That night, he lay awake, accompanied only by the familiar pressure over his chest that kept him from sleeping. The rest of the world was quiet, asleep. Well, almost. Phil was awake too, he knew that. Knowing that the both of them were awake right then, when everyone else was asleep, felt significant.

Dan sighed; he missed Phil, even if they had only been apart for a few days. The longing was deeper than distance and time though. He missed what they had had before it become complicated. Why had it? Dan still wasn’t sure.

It wasn’t difficult to find the number for the phone counselling in the region. At least Dan thought it was the correct number. If someone else picked up he’d die of embarrassment, but he risked it, before he lost his nerve.

The signal beeped sluggishly, and Dan’s tired heart still managed to tick like a bomb. Then, Phil answered, thank god. Dan was tongue-tied in his relief.

“Hello?” Phil asked when Dan failed to answer him.

“Uh, yeah, hi. It’s me,” Dan said. His voice sounded too loud in the otherwise silent house.

“Dan?” Phil sounded incredulous.

“Yes.”

“What are you doing?”

“Uh…” What was he doing? “I can’t sleep.”

“You know you can’t call here. It’s for people who need to talk.”

“Maybe I need to talk,” Dan protested.

Phil was silent for a moment.

“Okay,” he said then.

Once he got the green light, Dan had no idea what to say. ‘Hey, you really hurt me by ignoring me for almost two weeks with no explanation, but I still need to talk to you because I’m uncomfortable at my childhood home even if my parents are really nice to me’?

“Are you having a good time at your parents’?” Phil asked when Dan had been silent for too long again.

“Yeah, it’s good,” Dan answered quickly, automatically. Then, he forced himself to be honest. If he was taking up Phil’s time, he might as well do it properly. “I just… get anxious when I’m here.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s just, memories, and bad atmosphere, I guess.” Dan sighed. “I have so many issues,” he confessed, “and it’s like, it’s not my parents’ fault. I mean, it’s because of them, but they weren’t bad parents, not really. They were never like, malicious or anything.”

“It could be their fault even if they didn’t do it deliberately,” Phil said. “They might not have been aware of how their actions or attitudes affected you, but it did affect you. It’s especially difficult with family. You’re so close to them and you love them, so you can’t properly digest how they hurt you. Like, every time you try to detangle that big ball of feelings, your love for them overrides it.”

Phil was so wise. Dan wasn’t used to hearing him talk like that; they had touched on difficult topics before, but even then, Phil hadn’t talked quite like this. He sounded like a therapist or something. Was this his priest-mode?

“Yeah, exactly,” Dan agreed. “I think maybe they were a bit too young when they had me. They were, you know, pretty free-spirited and didn’t have traditional jobs, so when I dropped out of University, I thought they would be more supportive. But they weren’t. We didn’t have a lot of money when I was younger, which I think made them want me to have an education or a good job. They were just going on and on about how I needed a secure future. And then I had to move back home and we were like fighting all the time, and then I pitched the idea of getting into fashion and running a fashion blog and–” Dan let out a mirthless laugh. “They must’ve thought I was the most stupid person in the world.”

“You’re not stupid,” Phil said. “You’re brave.”

“I’m a little bit stupid,” Dan deflected.

“Maybe a little,” Phil agreed. Dan could almost hear him smiling through the phone. Then he turned serious again. “Honestly Dan, I get it. No wonder you’re anxious. Have you been fighting, or…?”

“No. We don’t really fight anymore, it’s just an emotional knee-jerk reaction to being here, I guess. And it’s getting better, honestly.”

“That’s good,” Phil said softly.

Then silence fell between them. Dan’s heart ached. He missed Phil. He loved him.

“Hey Dan?” Phil said, sounding unsure.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry for being weird the other week. I was going through some stuff, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

He sounded pained, ashamed. Dan didn’t even hesitate. He forgave him, he forgave him, he forgave him. Phil could have had a million reasons, or none at all. It didn’t matter. Dan didn’t want to be angry and hurt anymore; he wanted to be with Phil, like they had been before. He wanted to heal. He chose Phil.

“It’s fine, really. It happens,” he told Phil.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Dan said.

Finally, Dan placed his feet on the bottom of the plunge pool. His head was above the surface and he could breathe safely. The water didn’t feel as cold.

“You can make it up to me by making dinner tomorrow when I come home,” Dan added to lighten the mood.

“I will,” Phil promised. “What do you want?”

They started throwing ideas back and forth until Dan was feeling a bit hungry. It sounded so domestic, planning dinner together for when Dan came home. It filled him with another bout of love for Phil.

“I don’t want to be all sappy, but I’m really glad I met you,” Dan said. “I mean, I have friends, good friends, but not really anything like this.”

‘Anything like this’? Great. That was obvious as fuck. Dan waited to feel the anxiety that always hit him when he thought Phil might figure out his feelings, but this time it didn’t come. Maybe the world wouldn’t end if Phil knew.

“I know what you mean; we connect,” Phil said.

“Yeah…”

“I actually–” Phil let out a breathy almost-giggle, “You inspired me to sign up for an evening course.”

“What?”

“It’s the one you told me about, that your piano teacher teaches. About gender and sexuality in religion,” Phil explained.

“That’s amazing.” Dan was already smiling. “You go, Phil.”

“Well, you always talk about stuff like that, so I figured I should learn more about it. And honestly… when you asked me about how I approached the topic, I started thinking about it and realised I actually didn’t know.”

Dan wanted to punch the wall in happiness, but he bit his pillow instead. Phil hadn’t just listened to him, he had actually _listened_ to him.

“Phil… with risk of sounding condescending, I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you. I’m proud of me too.”

They didn’t get off the phone until the sun was rising. Dan should probably have felt guilty about keeping Phil from doing his job properly, but he didn’t. They had finally worked things out, and he wouldn’t give that up for anything.

Dan’s entire body told him to stay in bed until the afternoon, but he dragged himself up early to have breakfast with his parents. After years of being a night owl he thought he’d mastered the art of being a zombie in the morning without them noticing, but his dad cast one look at him when he sat down at the table and asked,

“Didn’t sleep much?”

“Uhhhh…”

“I heard you up talking last night,” he said.

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you,” Dan said and poured some orange juice for himself.

“It’s alright. Who were you talking to, so late?” His dad asked.

“Phil. The, uh, friend I told you about.” Dan said as casually as he could.

“Are you two…?” His mum asked, glancing up from the newspaper she had spread in front of her.

“No,” Dan said with a sigh. “I told you; he’s a priest.”

“Well, you never know,” she said before taking a sip of her coffee, effectively ending the conversation.

Of course his parents thought he’d corrupt a priest. Of course.

***

When he returned to London that evening he just dumped his bag inside of his front door before going downstairs to Phil’s for dinner. Phil gave him a long, warm hug and it felt like coming home.

***

Dan was working on his blog, music playing softly in the background. Phil was sitting on his bed with his laptop, doing god-knows-what. They were enjoying each other’s silence.

“Can you change the music?” Phil asked suddenly.

Dan needed a second to register what song was playing. 33 “GOD” by Bon Iver. Huh, Phil had liked it before when Dan played it.

“I thought you liked Bon Iver,” he said.

“Will you just change it?” Phil asked, impatient.

“To what?”

“Anything. I don’t care.”

Dan skipped the song and Perfume Genius started singing instead.

Dan rotated his chair around so that he faced Phil. With his head tilted to the side, he studied his friend. What was going on with him? Dan had assumed his intense bible-reading was related to the topics they had discussed, but this pointed in a whole other direction. Maybe Phil hadn’t been looking for answers regarding gender and sexuality, like Dan had thought. Maybe he’d been looking for something else entirely. Ash flakes from the burning bush, perhaps. Something to quench doubt.

This time, Dan felt like he could ask about it.

“Did something happen?”

“Hm?” Phil didn’t even look up from his computer.

“The other week you said you have been reading the Bible a lot lately. And now you wanted me to change the music,” Dan said. “I just thought maybe, I don’t know, something was going on.”

Phil looked up and sighed.

“It’s just this thing that happened. Or didn’t happen. I thought it would, and then it didn’t, so I was just looking for some kind of reason as to why God let me believe it would happen… But who knows, maybe it wasn’t divine intervention. Maybe it was just a very human coincidence.”

He shrugged, like it was no big deal.

“What was it?” Dan inquired, curious now. What was it that Phil had hoped would happen to get him this beat down when it didn’t?

“Just a thing,” Phil said.

“Are you, like, doubting?” Dan asked.

“No,” Phil said without hesitating. “I’m just disappointed.”

Dan loved that they could talk like this again. Ever since he came back from Wokingham, their friendship had been softer, in a way. Dan had no words for it. There was a glow between them, new and familiar at once. They had both, in their own way, admitted that the other was important to them, which had made their bond stronger. Even his love for Phil was different now. It had become something precious to him. Before, he’d treated his feelings as a burden to be waited out, but now he didn’t know if they would pass, and that was fine. The same glow that was between him and Phil had enclosed his heart. Sometimes he was so full of emotions he could barely breathe, but in a good way. It still hurt, of course, but his heart was no longer leaking blood; it was pumping out ichor. Beautiful. Ethereal. (He had to romanticise it. That was the only way he could stand it.)

***

“Hey, Dan?” Phil said.

“Yeah?” Dan answered and continued writing the post going up on his blog.

“I have something for you,” Phil said and Dan looked up from his screen.

From his pocket, Phil produced a small piece of paper.

“What’s that?” Dan asked, reaching for it before the words had even left his mouth.

“The final note I wrote you,” Phil said and placed the piece of paper in his palm.

Dan unfolded it. The text, in Phil’s handwriting (that he now recognised), said _“Cancer by My Chemical Romance?”._ Very informal.

“I didn’t know you still had it,” Dan said.

“Me neither. I found it while cleaning the other day,” Phil said and reclined on Dan’s bed in that casual manner that drove Dan crazy. “I thought maybe you wanted it since you kept the other ones.”

“How do you know I kept the other ones?” Dan asked.

“You told me.”

“Philip Michael Lester, have you been snooping in my bedside drawer?” Dan said with his best mum-voice.

“You keep them in your bedside drawer?” Phil asked, sounding delighted, like he’d caught Dan doing something dirty.

“What, there’s nothing weird about that. I keep lots of stuff there,” Dan said.

“Uh huh,” Phil said.

“Shut up,” Dan said and put the note on his desk before turning back to work.

It was difficult to concentrate sometimes, when Phil was in the room. Not because he was annoying, but because his mere presence demanded Dan’s attention. He felt every nerve ending within him shift their attention to the man behind him.

Dan picked up the note again, twirled it between his fingers. There were times when the nature of their meeting hit him, and he thought about how perfectly romantic it was. He adored the way Phil listened to him, but technically he’d been listening long before they met.

That thought stayed with him, for some reason. Phil meant so much to him, he wasn’t afraid to admit that now, and he wanted to do something nice for him. And since he sadly couldn’t suck Phil’s dick, he had to settle for something else. He just didn’t know what.

The next time he had a piano lesson with Frances, he was acutely aware that she was now also Phil’s teacher.

“My friend is taking your course this autumn,” he said, completely unprompted as soon as they had sat down at the piano.

“Oh? Who is it?” Frances asked, sounding interested.

“His name is Phil Lester.”

“Ah. The priest. It’s good of him; most priests don’t seek knowledge outside the church.” She gave Dan a look. “Was it you who told him about it?”

“Yes.”

“Well. Good of you too, then,” she said with a smile. “So, shall we begin?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Then, an idea struck him. He wasn’t sure if it was the best time for it, considering Phil’s recent quarrel with God, but it was a good idea. Too good to pass up. “I was wondering…”

“Yes?”

“Could you teach me how to play _Ave Maria_?”

***

As happy as Dan was that Phil had decided to learn more about gender and sexuality and become a better priest, he didn’t appreciate how much of Phil’s already limited time it robbed him of. Between Phil’s school and their jobs and Dan’s fittings for the Independent Fashion Show, they barely saw each other. In a way, it was good because it gave Dan time to practise _Ave Maria_ when he knew Phil wasn’t around, but it came with the unfortunate side-effect of missing him terribly. Now that their friendship was back on track, he wanted to catch up on the time they’d lost, not lose even more.

Before he knew it, they were reaching the end of September. Both the fashion show and his anticipated performance for Phil were nearing with giant strides and Dan felt ready for neither.

Dan had practised _Ave Maria_ with more care than any other song. He wanted it to be perfect. When he played it for Frances after weeks of learning it, he was painfully aware of how obvious his efforts were.

When he was done, Frances was smiling, more than ever.

“Dan, that was perfect,” she said.

“Thank you,” Dan said and smiled back, preening under the praise.

“Who are you playing for?” She asked. Naturally, she had noticed.

“Uh, Phil.”

“I can tell,” she said. Dan wondered if he should explain, but he didn’t feel the need to. “Will you play it in his church?” Frances asked.

“No, just at home.”

“St. Aelred’s have great acoustics otherwise. I’ve been to concerts there before.”

“It’s kind of a surprise,” Dan said.

“Oh, okay.” Frances nodded. “I better keep my mouth shut then.”

***

Dan was preparing his apartment for Phil to come over after work, but he was so nervous he paced more than cleaned. He kept thinking that this might in fact be a bad idea, and he should back out. Maybe Phil wouldn’t care, and Dan was getting himself worked up for a mediocre reaction. That would be so disappointing.

As the hours ticked by, Dan became more and more convinced that he should in fact play at St. Aelred’s, as Frances had suggested. Phil was there now, and would get off work at 6:30, so it’s not like it would be a detour. Where would be more fitting to play _Ave Maria_ than in an actual church? Besides, it would offer some distance. Yes, playing for Phil like this was partially an ode to their friendship and its origin, but he felt like he needed a little distance. The thought of Phil sitting on his couch an armlength away as he played made his skin crawl; it would be too close, too intimate. Playing at all was intimate enough, he didn’t need to sense Phil’s presence behind him.

As the time was nearing 6:30, Dan made his decision and left his apartment, setting his course towards St. Aelred’s. The summer heat had lingered and Dan didn’t need more than a thin coat. His head was filled with thoughts, but they were all rushing around his mind too fast to grasp and made him dizzy. He barely registered the walk over, only suddenly realised that he had arrived.

The church loomed over him, looking daunting at evenfall, a black silhouette against the peach-coloured sky. Dan’s heart was beating so hard he could see his shirt moving when he glanced down at his chest. This was it.

He walked up the steps, through the heavy door, and then he was once again in Phil’s church. It was empty now, and very different from when it was packed with people. The building was dark, illuminated only by a few low gleaming lamps and flickering candles. The air was heavy with the smell of melting wax and dust. For some reason, empty churches always smelled like dust, no matter how often they were cleaned.

Dan saw Samuel first, the other priest. He was zig-zagging through the pews, gathering hymnals that people had left behind. Phil mentioned him often in passing, but Dan had never met him. He had white hair, and walked with his back proudly straight, as if he’d swallowed a ruler.

Dan looked around the church and spotted Phil by a spherical candle holder, speaking with a middle-aged woman. They were talking so quietly Dan wouldn’t have known they were talking at all if he didn’t see their lips move.

God, Phil looked so handsome in his cassock. Dan had barely seen him in it, and every time it caught him off guard. Phil always looked good in black, but the cassock was something special.

Phil glanced over his shoulder and saw Dan, then seemed to excuse himself from the woman before coming towards him.

“What are you doing here?” Phil asked.

“I, uh, wanted to show you a thing,” Dan said.

Phil looked confused.

“Here?”

“Yes. I’ll explain it to you in a bit,” Dan said even though he knew he was making no sense. Maybe he should’ve done this at home after all.

“Okay. Uh, I have to talk to Marie first, but I’ll be with you in a few minutes,” Phil said.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll wait by the altar,” Dan said.

Phil went back to the woman, and Dan saw him apologising for the interruption. Dan walked towards the altar, past Samuel in the pews, who made no note of him.

The church was much more beautiful like this. It felt more sacred, in a way, when it was empty and dark. He could almost feel traces of holiness still left in him responding to it, like tendrils reaching for the sun. It didn’t make him feel uncomfortable or conflicted though, just… calm. Like the grey painting at the art gallery had. And he needed that calm now more than ever.

When Phil eventually came up to stand beside him ten minutes later, Dan was studying the text written above the altar. _Etenim Deus noster ignis consumens est_. He still didn’t know what it meant.

“What does it mean?” He asked Phil.

“ _’For our God is a consuming fire_ ,’” Phil translated for him. “Hebrews twelve and twenty-nine.”

“Epic and terrifying,” Dan said.

“Of course,” Phil responded. “So, what was it you wanted to show me?”

Dan’s throat suddenly felt drier than a desert.

“I want to play for you,” he croaked.

Phil’s eyes flickered to the piano that stood to the side of the altar.

“What, on the piano?”

“No, on a bongo drum,” Dan deadpanned. “Yes, the piano. If that’s alright with you.”

“Yes, of course. Let me just tell Samuel,” Phil said.

Oh. Right. There were other people here too.

They both turned and saw that Samuel was stacking the hymnals on a shelf by the door. When he was done, Phil said his name to get his attention. He barely had to raise his voice for it to carry in the silent church.

“Dan would like to play the piano for me, so I’ll stay a little longer,” he explained to Samuel and Dan blushed.

“That’s fine,” Samuel said, as if Phil had asked his permission. “I’ll be in the office.”

When he had left, Phil gestured towards the piano, and Dan gave him his coat before he sat down. While he placed his sheets of music on the rack, Phil sat down in the nearest pew a few metres behind him. Dan’s fingers trembled above the keys. Okay, now it was time. Moment of truth.

Once he started, it was easier. All he had to do was remind himself to not rush through the piece, but play it as he had practised it. As _Ave Maria_ echoed through the room, he could hear what Frances had heard; his heart was in every note, so filled with love, so vulnerable. Could Phil hear it too?

When he was done, he sat for a moment and just breathed, feeling almost dizzy with relief that he’d played it perfectly. Then, he registered the silence after the music; he hadn’t expected an applause exactly, but something.

He turned on the piano stool and saw that Phil had stood up and was making his way out of the pew, towards Dan. Dan stood up too. Phil was smiling, but not in that face-splitting way he did sometimes. It was much softer, and his eyes were glowing. Dan knew, then, that he had succeeded. He had touched Phil’s heart with his music.

Phil stopped right in front of him, close. He didn’t say anything, just lifted his hands and placed them on either side of Dan’s face. Dan couldn’t breathe. Then Phil pulled him closer still, and kissed him. Softest lips, so sweet against his. When they pulled apart, Dan felt like he was breathing air for the very first time. Then Phil kissed him again, and Dan eagerly met him halfway. He could do this forever, just kiss Phil, over and over. Small explosions in his heart was spreading out through his body, reaching every part of him, every capillary, every nerve ending.

Then he remembered that he was kissing _Phil_ , who was a priest, right in the middle of a church. What he wanted the most, but knew he couldn’t have. Phil would regret it, and it would ruin everything.

He pushed Phil away gently, breaking their kiss. Phil let go of his face, and Dan missed the warmth of his hands instantly.

Phil looked between the piano and Dan, a confused and pained look on his face.

“Did I misunderstand?” He asked.

“No,” Dan said. “No, not at all. But we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Phil, you’re a priest,” Dan reminded him.

Phil looked more confused than ever.

“Yeah, so?”

“I don’t want you hate me because I made you break your vows,” Dan explained.

Phil was silent for a long moment, and Dan studied his shoes as if he’d never seen them before. He didn’t want to watch Phil realise he was right.

“Dan,” Phil said, then “Dan.” And Dan looked up to see him grinning. “I’m not celibate.”

Dan stared at him. Turned his words over in his mind, tried to make sense of them.

“What?”

“I’m not celibate,” Phil repeated, his grin widening. “Anglican priests aren’t celibate.”

Dan couldn’t believe this. What the fuck. What. The. Fuck. What–

“Are you kidding me?! Are you actually kidding me?!”

By now, Phil was outright laughing. Dan’s entire world felt just a little askew. The thoughts were spinning in his head.

“Dan,” Phil said again, smile broad enough to split his face.

The disbelief made way for a rush of ecstasy; Phil was here, now, in front of him. Not celibate, and he wanted Dan. He wanted Dan. It clicked into place, and Dan immediately reached for Phil. He needed to kiss him again, to press close to him, chest to chest so that he could feel their hearts beat in sync. He was sure he’d be washed over with other emotions soon enough, but for now he just wanted this. Forever, he wanted this.

Dan lost track of time. They could have been kissing for two seconds or two hours, he wasn’t sure. He just knew that if he dropped dead in that moment, he’d die happy. Phil’s hands had found their way to his face again and were straying into his hair, while his own were roaming over Phil’s back, his neck, his biceps.

He was ready to get shafted right then and there, in the eyes of all the saints, when someone politely cleared their throat. He and Phil sprung apart, and turned to see Samuel standing a few metres away.

“It’s late. I’m closing the church,” he said, as if he hadn’t just walked in on them eating each other’s faces.

“Uh, yes, okay. Let me just get my things…” Phil mumbled, his face completely red.

Without a word, Samuel held out Phil’s phone and keys. Phil retrieved them from him while Dan picked up his coat. He felt hot all over, and was sure he matched Phil in colour.

When they had left Samuel behind and stepped into the clear night, neither of them could resist laughing.

“I feel sorry for him,” Dan said as they calmed down and started walking home.

“I’m never going to live that down,” Phil said. “God, I will be so embarrassed tomorrow.”

Dan laughed, then quietened. The silence between them was tense, but not uncomfortable. What would happen now? Dan’s lips were still tender from Phil’s kisses, and now they were walking home together. Anything could happen, yes, but it seemed to be leading in a certain direction. He felt a familiar tingle in his groin.

“I can’t believe you thought I was celibate,” Phil said eventually.

Dan groaned. He couldn’t believe it either. He could name at least a dozen saints off the top of his head, but he didn’t know priests weren’t required to be celibate? He’d been raised a Christian, for fuck’s sake! Although the priest in his grandma’s church had never had a wife, as far as he knew, and he’d almost only seen catholic priests on TV. It wasn’t exactly that strange that he had assumed Phil was celibate.

“Ugh, I know. I wanted to ask you about it a million times but I thought it would be insensitive in case you were like, struggling,” Dan said, and Phil laughed. “You could have told me!”

“I didn’t know that you didn’t know,” Phil defended himself. “I thought you just didn’t like me.”

“What? I was really obvious about it.”

“No, you were sending mixed signals. Sometimes I thought you liked me, but every time I tried to make a move you distanced yourself,” Phil said, and Dan remembered all the times Phil had cuddled him on the couch before Dan politely extracted himself. Oh.

“That’s because I didn’t want you to see that I had popped a boner,” Dan said and Phil snorted.

“Fair. But then you went on a date with that other guy and I thought for sure you didn’t like me, because if you did you wouldn’t–“

“Wait, what? What guy?” Dan asked.

“The one you went on a date with,” Phil said, as if that told Dan anything. “You know, when you came and got your shirt I had washed.”

“That wasn’t a date,” Dan said, “that was my business meeting with _Peitho Designs_.”

“Oh…”

“Wait,” Dan said, “is that why you ignored me?”

“Yes,” Phil admitted and Dan turned to stare at him. “I was heartbroken!”

“Oh my god, I cannot believe this,” Dan said and stopped to hide his face in his hands. “We are the most ridiculous fucking clowns ever.”

“Yeah…” Phil said dreamily.

Dan felt Phil grasping his wrist and pulling his hands away. His heart started beating faster, and when Phil kissed him again it stopped completely. Oh, he loved this. Phil’s tongue was warm and soft and wet, exploring Dan’s mouth carefully and then hungrily. The tingle in Dan’s groin spread through his body and gave him goose bumps. Phil pulled back too soon.

“Let’s go home,” Phil said, his voice lower than usual.

Dan nodded and they began walking again, faster this time. Close together under a star-filled sky; a romantic setting Dan couldn’t wait to get out of. He wanted, no, _needed_ to get Phil inside so that he could put his hands all over him.

They reached Phil’s apartment and Phil led Dan into his room. Dan’s entire body was fizzling; he’d imagined this a thousand times but he hadn’t for the life of him thought it would actually happen. They kissed again, and Dan fumbled with the buttons on Phil’s cassock. They were stubborn.

“They’re trying to keep you chaste until the very end,” he panted, breathless from all the kissing.

Phil snorted and helped him, and eventually enough buttons were undone so that Dan could push the cassock off Phil’s shoulders. It fell to the floor with a low thud and Phil stepped out of it. Phil kissed Dan’s neck and sneaked his hands under Dan’s shirt, gracing his skin with his fingertips as he grabbed the hem to pull it off.

After he had pulled the shirt over Dan’s head and discarded it on the floor together with the cassock, he just… looked. Dan wanted to shield himself from his gaze, but forced his arms to stay by his sides.

He didn’t understand how Phil could be so calm; Dan was ready to rip and claw to get what he wanted, and he wanted everything at once. It made him dizzy.

“You’re so beautiful,” Phil told him, eyes still roaming over Dan’s body.

Dan wanted to protest or laugh it off, but instead he attacked Phil’s t-shirt, pulling it off him. When Phil’s head emerged again, Dan kissed him before nudging him towards the bed. They sank into the sheets and Dan started undoing Phil’s jeans with single-minded efficiency. He felt the hardness beneath his fingers and hurried even more.

“Calm down,” Phil said. “We have the whole night, let’s not rush.”

Dan was so horny he almost wanted to cry.

“Phil, I will literally die if you don’t get inside me right now,” he said and felt Phil’s cock harden even more. He pressed the heel of his hand against it, and Phil moaned.

“Alright, alright, just…” Phil shuffled out of his jeans, throwing them on the floor.

He pressed Dan down into the mattress and kissed him hard before unbuttoning his jeans. Dan lifted his ass so that Phil could pull them off, but they get stuck mid-thigh.

“Oh god.” Dan’s face was aflame. He wanted to die.

“You should’ve worn something less tight,” Phil said.

With some wiggling and a joint effort, they managed to get Dan’s jeans off. Then Phil took off Dan’s underwear as well as his own, and Dan just looked at his cock. He knew Phil was big, but not that big. Imagining it pressing into him, just a little too much, made the fire within him volcanic. His entire body was weak with wanting.

Phil leaned over to retrieve a bottle of lube from his bedside drawer, then he repositioned himself between Dan’s thighs.

“Right.”

“Right,” Dan repeated nervously.

He felt Phil’s wet fingers at his hole and relaxed the best he could, but his whole body was tight with excitement. Every time Phil did something new he looked at Dan to see if it was okay, and Dan wanted to tell him that he could literally kill him and Dan would still think it was hot. He didn’t though. Just let out a string of obscene sounds that made him blush.

“How’s that?” Phil asked.

“Fine. I think you can– I’m ready,” Dan babbled.

Phil pushed inside slowly and Dan couldn’t stop his sharp intake of breath. It had been so long since he did this. It wasn’t painful, really, just… a lot.

“Dan?”

“I just need a moment,” Dan said and took a deep breath, relaxing. “Yeah, okay.”

Phil started moving and yes, there it was. Dan knew this feeling, he loved this feeling. Phil was so beautiful above him, with his freckle-dusted shoulders and high cheekbones that looked even sharper in the low light. He had chest hair and curly pubes and gentle hands. He gripped Dan’s fleshy thighs and caressed his pudgy stomach and he did it like he was touching the finest artwork. It made Dan’s insecurities melt away for just a moment, and he no longer held back the sounds he was making. Phil started fucking him harder and faster, his moans affecting him. Dan grabbed his ass and pushed him in even deeper. He wanted Phil so deep inside of him that they stopped being two separate people. Oh, fuck, this was so good. Phil breathed heavily in his ear and mouthed at his neck, kissing, licking, biting. Dan kissed him everywhere he could reach. God, he never wanted this to end. But it did, with quick thrusts and messy kisses.

Then they just lay there, face to face, smiling. Except for Phil’s warm hand on his hip, they weren’t touching. Dan no longer had the urge to hide; yes, he was a bit sticky, a bit sweaty, a bit gross, but he could lie here outstretched under Phil’s gaze and know Phil wasn’t judging him, or cataloguing his flaws. It was freeing.

Between them was the same peaceful vulnerability, the same quiet reverence, that had been present in the church after Dan had played, just before Phil kissed him. Their feelings were too big, they invaded the room and almost made it hard to breathe.

“ _’Invite me, and I come. I stay until dawn breathes its light and night slips away. You’re beautiful from head to toe, my dear love, beautiful beyond compare, absolutely flawless,’_ ” Phil mumbled, staring right into Dan’s eyes.

Dan’s blush bloomed and turned his entire body rosy. He recognised the words, but it took a moment for him to place them. Then he huffed out a laugh.

“Can’t say I’ve ever had a guy quote the Bible to me after sex,” he said.

“You clearly haven’t slept with the right kind of guys,” Phil said. Then he slid his hand from Dan’s hip up his side, and then down again. “You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about this. You, here with me.”

“Me too,” Dan answered, shivering under the touch.

“Thank you for the little concert, by the way. I forgot to say that,” Phil said.

“I wasn’t sure if it was the right moment, since you had been like, fighting with God, or whatever,” Dan said.

Phil’s smile widened so much it almost looked dorky.

“It’s all good now. You fixed that.”

“What do you mean?” Dan asked.

“I was upset with God because I just… didn’t understand why He had put you in my path if He didn’t intend for us to be together,” Phil confessed.

“You thought God had sent me?” This was… new. And weird. Definitely weird.

“Not like, sent you. More like he brought us together. We click in every single way. We fit. And, if you think about it, the way we met was a bit out of character for both of us, considering we’re quite shy,” Phil said.

“You’re not shy.”

“Yes, I am! Especially about meeting new people. I was so nervous when I left that first note.”

“Okay, sure. But if it was God that brought us together, shouldn’t this whole thing have gone a bit smoother?”

“No. It only goes to show that even divine intervention isn’t immune to human obstacles,” Phil said.

He was only teasing, Dan knew that, but it still made that ball of anxiety swell in his chest. All the time they’d lost, all the missed opportunities…

“We could have had this all summer,” Dan said and shifted closer to Phil, who immediately slid his arms around Dan.

“Yeah, but don’t think about that,” Phil said, even if he probably knew Dan would spend days agonising about it. Dan couldn’t help it; certain thoughts got stuck in him like fish hooks and paralysed him, even if there was nothing he could do. “If anything, it will be a fun story to tell the kids.”

Dan literally had to play Phil’s words back in his head. Yes, Phil had said he was in love with him and wanted to be with him, but he hadn’t really expected Phil to already envision their future together, as Dan had. Maybe Dan’s pathetic daydreams had been mutual.

A surge of love made his heart ache and he had to lean in and kiss Phil. Which turned into more kisses, which turned into round two. A bit slower, a bit sensitive. Did it take minutes? Hours? The whole night? Dan had no idea. The concept of time completely disappeared among their sighs of pleasure.

He ended up on his side, with Phil close behind him, holding him. Dan held his hand and smiled. He was so stupidly happy he could die. This was so much better than he could ever imagine, he thought as he drifted off to sleep.

Dan felt as if he’d only been asleep for a second before Phil shook him awake.

“Dan, hey, wake up.”

“Mmmm?”

Dan slowly, unwillingly, opened his eyes.

“I have to go to work,” Phil said, and yeah, Dan could see that now when Phil sat on the side of the bed, dressed in his cassock. That had been discarded to the floor last night, when they had slept together. It had happened. It wasn’t a dream.

“Do you have to?” Dan whined. “Can’t you call in sick and stay here with me?”

“I want to, but it’s not really that kind of job. Besides, Samuel would definitely know what I was up to.”

Right. Samuel, Phil’s colleague that had walked in on them in the church.

“Why did you wake me up if you can’t even stay?” Dan asked and stretched.

“I didn’t want you to wake up alone and not know where I am. And I wanted a kiss for the road.”

“Aww,” Dan said and Phil leaned down and kissed him. It was just as sweet as the first time.

Dan tried to deepen the kiss (maybe he could change Phil’s mind, make him crawl back into bed and give him a proper wakeup), but Phil pulled away.

“No,” he said, eyes dark. “Bad Dan.”

“Stay.”

“I can’t.”

Dan gave him his best puppy eyes, which he knew Phil was weak for.

“I’m leaving now, before you actually convince me,” Phil said and stood up. “There’s a spare key on the table in the hall, if you decide to leave.”

“Mm, never,” Dan said.

“Good. Go back to sleep now.”

Dan listened as Phil gathered his things and left, then he rolled over and pressed his face into the sheets. They smelled like sex, and sleep, and Phil.

When Dan woke up a second time, rain smattered against the windows and the sky was dark grey, but it didn’t stifle the sunshine in his chest. He stretched out over the bed like a sea star, taking a moment to just enjoy this. He would’ve enjoyed it way more if Phil was with him though. Smiling, Dan thought back on last night. How he had played for Phil and Phil had loved it. How they kissed. How they worked out the misunderstandings between them. How they had made love and connected in every way Dan had wanted. And how Phil had woken him up before going to work. It was almost like a dream, except it felt more real than anything Dan had ever experienced.

Dan could’ve stayed in bed all day and welcomed Phil home with open legs, but his stomach started rumbling and made him aware of how hungry he was. With lazy limbs, Dan crawled out from under the sheets and put his clothes on.

Should he raid Phil’s fridge or should he go back to his own apartment? He wanted to stay in Phil apartment forever, in this bubble they had created, but his phone was running low on battery and he’d be hard-pressed to ignore all the responsibilities that awaited him for the many hours that remained until Phil came home.

He locked the door behind him as he left, and smiled at the extra key he’d received. He was such a sappy person. The first thing he did when he came home was eat, then he jumped into the shower. He didn’t really want to wash away the smell of Phil from his skin (was Phil standing in church right now, smelling of Dan?), but he had streaks of dried semen on his thighs and abdomen, which was kind of gross.

He texted Phil and asked if he wanted dinner when he came home, and then he spent the rest of the day working. He answered emails, updated his blog, and revealed to his audience that he would be modelling for _Peitho Designs_ in the upcoming Independent Fashion Show. He’d been hinting for weeks, to build up anticipation.

As always, he heard when Phil came home. The noises from downstairs were so familiar, except Dan could imagine him doing it all now. Leaving his things, changing out of his cassock, locking the door, coming upstairs. Dan could almost hear the knock on the door before it came. He abandoned the food he was preparing and ran to open the door. When he saw Phil, he immediately kissed him, because he could do that now. They had only been apart a few hours, but it was like he’d gone into a coma the moment Phil left and now, back together again, his entire body woke up and made him feel alive.

“Hi,” Phil said once Dan let him get a word out. His face was flushed and his eyes were glowing, reflecting the life Dan felt pulsating within him.

“Hi. How was work?” Dan asked.

“Slower than ever.”

Dan understood what he meant; every minute apart felt like an eternity.

“Come, let’s eat. Then we can try out my bed,” Dan said, leering.

***

Dan wished he and Phil could lock themselves away for a couple of months and just enjoy each other. The outside world was an unwelcome guest that kept intruding. Time that should be spent romping was instead distributed between work, Phil’s evening classes, Dan’s meetings with _Peitho_ _Designs_ , rehearsals before the show, and various other social engagement that demanded their attention. And honestly, Dan would’ve preferred to be locked away with Phil instead of enduring his friends’ teasing about the mess he’d made. It was all good-natured, but he was equally embarrassed anyone brought it up. He still couldn’t believe what an idiot he’d been.

Without warning, the day of the fashion show approached. Dan had only planned to bring Louise with him, but now he invited Phil as well. He was his boyfriend after all. Boyfriend. The word still made him giddy.

Phil wouldn’t arrive until later though, when he actual show started. Dan was there hours before for hair and makeup, and he brought Louise with him so that she could photograph backstage. He’d asked permission for that; it was something that might draw more readers to his blog. And her presence at his side was godsend, because he felt out of place among the other people that would model. There were some regular people, like him, but there were also some strikingly beautiful actual models. It was nice to have a familiar face around, even if he didn’t get much of a chance to talk with Louise. He was pushed into a hair dresser’s chair immediately, who fixed his curls until they fell perfectly, and then he was passed on to a makeup artist.

“Name and designer?” The makeup artist asked, looking at a list.

“Daniel Howell and, uh, _Peitho Designs_.”

The makeup artist nodded and located his name on the list.

“Lo has given me instructions about your makeup,” she said as her eyes moved over the list.

Dan didn’t really wear makeup. He had tried it a few times, but he wasn’t particularly good and always ended up looking like a three-year-old that had broken into their mother’s makeup supply. It was almost disheartening to find out exactly how much makeup the artist thought he needed just to make his skin look smooth and nice. But then, seeing the finished result was almost magical. He looked good. Like, actually handsome. His skin was completely smooth and his eyes were framed by sharp, black eyeliner and mascara. He looked like an airbrushed version of himself. The best thing, however, was the eyeshadow. It was red, to match the outfits he’d be wearing, and adorned not only his eyelids, but spread out on either side, spilling onto his temples and cheekbones. It looked almost like watercolour.

Louise managed to snap a few closeups of the makeup before Dan was approached by a familiar figure.

“Daniel, hi,” Lo said, smiling. “Are you ready to get changed?”

Dan nodded and followed ey into a changing room, where two other people were getting changed.

“This is the outfit you will wear,” Lo said and presented him with a black and red dress shirt in finest fabrics; the black parts were soft, and the red were sheer and see-through. To match the shirt, he was to wear a pair of black trousers without any crotch room and a pair of wine coloured shoes.

It took some effort to put on the tight trousers, but the shirt slid against his skin like a caress. It hugged his body without emphasizing any shapes that would be unflattering. Looking in the full-length mirror, the result was stunning. He felt a bit weird about it, but he was almost attracted to himself. This was a real look.

“Let me look at you,” Lo said and he turned to em. “Hmm…”

Ey started unbuttoning the shirt without any warning, which made Dan blush.

“Yes, like that,” ey said when Dan’s chest was exposed more than he’d like.

He didn’t protest though, not until ey gave him a red rosary to wear around his neck as a final touch.

“I don’t think I should wear that,” he said. Lo raised an eyebrow. “They’re used for prayer, not as an accessory. I think that’s like, sacrilege or something.”

“I thought you said you weren’t religious,” ey commented.

“I’m not, but, uh, my boyfriend is a priest, and he’s coming to the show,” he said.

“You’re joking!” Lo’s slight disdain turned into delight. “What’s that like?”

“Um,” Dan let out a small laugh, “surprisingly normal.”

“Wow, that’s so cool,” ey said. “Do you call him father?”

“Only in bed,” Dan joked and Lo grinned.

“Now that’s probably sacrilege,” ey said and slapped his shoulder. “I’ll find something else for you to wear, okay?”

“Or, um…”

“What?”

“Maybe I could just have it buttoned up?” Dan suggested.

“Hmm, let me see,” ey said and Dan buttoned the shirt all the way up. Ey nodded. “Yes, I like that.”

Then he was all done, and could go out and see Louise.

“Oh my God! Dan, you look amazing,” she said when she saw him. “Come on, we have to immortalise this.”

Even more photos. He knew that he had brought her backstage to take photos, but he was still not 100% comfortable to be photographed. Imagining how it would be when he walked down the catwalk with smattering cameras made his stomach turn. Why had he agreed to this?

“I’m so nervous I’m actually gonna shit myself,” he said.

“What do you usually do when you’re nervous?” Louise asked.

“Die. No, I don’t know. I just deal with it, I guess,” he said and thought back to how he had calmed himself down before playing for Phil. But that had been Phil, who was only one person, and someone Dan knew well. Now he’d walk on a catwalk in front of hundreds of strangers. And with his luck he’d probably fall over or something. He was so clumsy, why had he thought this was a good idea?

No matter how much he wanted time to stop so that he could prepare himself, it was soon time for the show to start.

“I’ll go and find Mr Lester, shall I?” Louise said and left him to find Phil.

They had only met twice since Dan and Phil became a couple, but they were already quite fond of each other. Dan had expected himself to feel jealous, but he was just glad. Right now, he wished he could be with them in the audience rather than on the catwalk.

Dan went back to the changing room and found the two other models that had gotten dressed alongside with him. They sat in silence and waited until Lo came and told them it was time.

Waiting behind the scenes where they could hear the music and see the models walk out and come back five minutes later was excruciating. By now Dan just wanted to get it over with. No, he shouldn’t just get it over with. He should swallow his anxiety and enjoy this. It was a chance he might not get again. Breathing deeply, he tried to calm himself. At least he knew he wouldn’t accidentally smile and ruin the neutral face Lo wanted them to hold; when he cast one last look in the mirror, he looked terrified.

“Daniel, it’s your turn now,” Lo told him and he lined up where he’d seen the other models disappear. “One, two, three, go!”

The first steps were the hardest. Dan was so jittery he wanted to run rather than stride in an unhurried pace. Then it was easier. He just walked with his head high, posed at the places Lo had marked out during rehearsal, and tried to not feel like a clumsy walrus. He wanted to look for Phil and Louise in the audience, but didn’t dare to turn his head in case he’d lose his momentary composure. By the end of his walk, he was feeling almost confident.

When he came backstage again, Lo gave him thumbs up.

“Good work, Daniel!” Ey said, then turned away. “Okay, who’s next? Sarah?”

Dan was done and allowed to go back to the dressing room and change. He spent the first ten minutes just leaning against the wall and breathing, calming his erratic heart. He’d done it. It had gone well.

He changed into his own clothes; a black, tight combo that worked great with the makeup he kept on. He just washed off some of the eyeshadow; the flaming wings that emitted from his eyes worked great on the catwalk, but he’d like to keep a somewhat lower profile on the after party, and more importantly, more professional. There was a lot of lobbying to be done.

At the after party, Dan immediately spotted Phil; there were many tall people around, but he’d recognise Phil anywhere. He zigzagged through the crowd until he came face to face with both Phil and Louise.

“Dan! You were great!” Louise said and hugged him. “You looked so majestic. Don’t worry, I took hundreds of photos.”

“I took some too,” Phil said and hugged him when Louise had let go.

They stood in the corner like the misfits they were, drinking champagne and talking about the show. Phil said Dan’s outfit had been the nicest one, but he probably just said that because Dan had also designed it. Dan wished he could stay with them, but he knew he needed to go out there and create new contacts, new opportunities.

He decided to find Lo first, which proved to be a smart move; ey introduced him to new people, who in turn passed him into new circles of people. Lo let them know that Dan had been the one who designed the outfit he’d worn, which Dan wasn’t expecting. But then again, _Peitho Designs_ were known for buying designs from freelancers. But according to everyone, Dan’s design had been a popular one. Maybe Phil had a better eye for fashion than he let on.

When he’d been networking for almost two hours, Dan retreated to Phil’s side. It was getting late and he was sleepy. He hadn’t been sleeping all that well the previous night because he’d been so nervous.

“Where’s Louise?” Dan asked.

“She had to go home. But she left your camera with me, so that you can upload the photos tomorrow.”

“Oh, great.”

“So, how long do you wanna stay here?” Phil asked.

“I don’t know. I’m done with everything I have to do, so we can go home if you want.”

“Good,” Phil said, then leaned closer. “I want you.”

A spark travelled from Dan’s tailbone all the way up his spine. He suddenly felt more awake.

“Okay, let’s go.”

They quickly collected their things, said goodbye to all the people Dan knew (there weren’t a lot). When they said goodbye to Lo, Dan could see em looking curiously at Phil. Dan understood why; Phil was smartly dressed and looked nothing like a priest. At least not like people expected priests to look like.

Once they had left the party, they took a taxi home. They were not the sort of couple who made out in front of strangers, and that included taxi chauffeurs, but Phil’s hand rested on Dan’s knee the entire way; squeezing occasionally, making Dan desperate to get home.

The way they rushed up the stairs once they got home reminded Dan of the first time they’d slept together, how eternally long the walk home had felt. In a way, he was even more desperate now because he knew what awaited behind locked doors.

They went to Phil’s apartment because it was closest, but after patting himself down, Phil turned to Dan.

“Oh no, I forgot my keys in Louise’s purse,” he said.

“Let’s go to mine then,” Dan said.

Phil grabbed his hand and started dragging him up the stairs. Dan wasn’t sure which one of them was most eager. Desire was clawing at his insides, making him fumble with the keys as Phil stood behind him, close and warm and tempting.

Finally inside, Phil backed him up against the wall opposite the closed front door. Dan let him, before devouring his lips. He kissed Phil sloppily, slowly, filled with promise.

“I loved seeing you up on that stage, Dan,” Phil gasped between their kisses. “You looked so good, I almost dragged you home the minute I saw you afterwards.”

“You like the makeup?” Dan asked and fluttered his eyelashes for emphasis.

“Yes,” Phil said and kissed him again before dropping to his knees. Dan looked down at him, and Phil met his eyes. “You should feel flattered,” he said, very deliberately, “the only other person I get on my knees for is God.”

Dan closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. Phil was doing this on purpose. The last thing Dan needed right now was the image of Phil kneeling before the altar, knees sore from sucking cock. But Phil had figured out that he liked it, the implication of impropriety.

“Holy shit, Phil, you can’t say things like that,” Dan said while Phil undid his fly.

“Why not?” Phil asked, sounding calmer than he was allowed to when he was two seconds away from putting Dan’s cock in his mouth.

“Because– oh my God!” The two seconds had passed. Phil wasted no time teasing him.

Dan held onto Phil’s hair gently, trying to ground himself and not come embarrassingly fast. But God, Phil was so good at this, and he loved it, loved sucking and lapping Dan’s cock like it was a fucking lolly.

He looked down at Phil again, looking delicious with hollowed cheeks and red, wet lips. Phil was hasty, but not because he wanted it to be over, no, it was because he couldn’t help himself. He swallowed Dan down eagerly, busing his hands with massaging Dan’s shaft and balls. It wasn’t easy to hold back, and Dan didn’t want to distract from the pleasure by trying to prolong it. He just relaxed, let it wash over him in waves until he came in Phil’s mouth with a groan. Phil swallowed it easily and then licked his lips.

When he stood up again, Dan reached for his fly, but Phil grabbed his hands.

“No,” he said, then, “come.”

Phil led Dan to the kitchen. His legs wobbled a little, but he followed obediently.

“I want to try something new,” Phil said and bent him over the dinner table.

“Alright.”

If Phil wanted to fuck him against the table he could. Dan would agree to anything after that blowjob.

Phil pulled Dan’s trousers further down before grabbing the bottle of olive oil from the counter. Which, sure, that would work. Dan leaned against the table top and waited.

Phil didn’t oil his cleft though, like he’d expected. Instead, he oiled up the inside of Dan’s thighs.

“Umm?”

Dan turned his head to the side and saw Phil put the bottle back, then pulled his own trousers down.

“Keep your thighs together,” Phil said, lining up behind Dan.

Dan did as he was told. Phil nudged his cock between Dan’s thighs, and it felt weird like that. Then, Phil started thrusting, his hard cock sliding between Dan’s oily, thick thighs. He felt weak after his orgasm, but tried his best to keep his thighs tight together.

Phil leaned over him, moaning in his ear.

“I’ve thought about this so many times,” he said. “Fuck, I love your thighs.”

Dan’s spent cock tried to get interested again. Feeling Phil’s hips snap against his ass, feeling his hard thrusts, and hearing his moans, hearing the slap of skin against skin… it didn’t matter if Phil was fucking his goddamn thighs, it was fucking hot and Dan felt raw inside with pleasure. It was like a _consuming fire._

Phil kept one hand on Dan’s hip, the other on his back, holding him down against the table. Dan loved it when he got like this; taking what he wanted. Dan had no problem giving it to him.

Phil pressed his forehead against Dan’s shoulder blade, tightened his hold on Dan’s hip, and came. Dan felt his warm come drip on his thighs, down on the floor.

“Shit,” Dan said. “Fuck, that was hot.”

“I know,” Phil said, trying to catch his breath.

After calming down, Phil cleaned up in the kitchen while Dan showered. Scrubbing the semen and olive oil from his thighs made his insides tingle again. But despite the fact that it took him a long time to wash the makeup off and get ready for bed, the arousal wouldn’t go away. To his pleasure, he found Phil naked and waiting for him in bed.

***

Despite their late night, Dan got up rather early the next day to post the photos from the fashion show to his blog. It was better to post them early. He saw that some other blogs he followed had already posted theirs last night. Well, Dan had been somewhat occupied…

He edited the photos and uploaded them together will a long post, yawning the whole time. He really hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep. Maybe he could take a nap or something when he was done.

Then, his mother called.

“Hello?”

“Hello, love. How did the show go?” She asked.

Dan was glad for her recent interest in his career, but unused to it. She’d always been rather sceptical, but he supposed all parents were like that until they saw results.

“Great. It was really fun, too. Uh, I have some pictures on my blog if you want to see,” he said.

“Alright, I will check.”

She was about to say something more, but Dan couldn’t stop the words sneaking past his lips.

“Me and Phil are together,” he said, so quickly the words blended together.

“What?”

“Me and Phil. We are together. Like, boyfriends.”

“Oh. Um… sorry, you caught me off guard. Congratulations,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“But I thought you said it wasn’t like that between you.”

“It was. I just… didn’t know,” he said.

“How long have you been together?”

“Just a couple of weeks.”

“Well, thank you for telling me,” she said.

He knew why she said it. The first boyfriend he had, he didn’t tell his parents about until it was over. He hadn’t been out to them at the time, but after the breakup he was heartbroken and vulnerable, and had blown up after an offhand remark. Yelling, then crying, then confessing. Confessing, it sounded like he had committed a crime. No, he hadn’t confessed; he had confided.

When he had ended the call with his mother, he went back to his bedroom, where Phil was still sleeping. Dan shed his clothes and crawled beneath the covers again. He leaned over and kissed Phil’s shoulder. His skin was soft and warm against Dan’s lips that Dan had to kiss him even more. With a sleepy noise, Phil flung his arm around Dan and pulled him closer. Dan settled into his embrace, feeling safe and content. He felt good about telling his mum. It hadn’t always been a given, but now it was.

***

Samuel had invited them to dinner at the end of the month. Dan was not eager. Not because there was something wrong with Samuel; the way Phil talked about him, he seemed like a very nice man. It was just that Dan had met Samuel all of one time and that was when Samuel walked in on him and Phil making out in the church. It was hardly a good first impression. And he desperately wanted to make a good impression.

“Dan, it’s honestly not that serious,” Phil told him when he changed his outfit for the third time.

“No, but he saw me trying to ravish you. I have to redeem myself,” Dan said.

“He didn’t mind. He thinks you seem nice.”

“Exactly. I don’t want to prove him wrong.”

They took the train to Samuel’s neighbourhood. It was a nice neighbourhood, a bit outside of London, with big houses that had big gardens. The vicarage where Samuel lived was no exception; it was a huge, pale yellow house with large windows and two pillars on either side of the front door that made the vicarage resemble a palace. Damn, Phil said he might live here one day. Hopefully they would still be together then, because the house was gorgeous.

Samuel opened the door while they were still on the garden path that was leading up to the house. He looked a bit different when he was dressed in jeans and a sweater instead of a cassock.

“Welcome,” he said when they had walked closer.

“Thank you,” Phil said and Dan mumbled the same.

“Emma is in the kitchen,” Samuel said and lead the way after they had hung up their coats.

The smell that hit them as they entered the kitchen made Dan’s stomach rumble. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it smelled good. Emma, who was stirring a pot, was a lady that looked a little bit like Jessica Lange, just less intimidating.

“Phil!” Emma exclaimed when she saw him. She abandoned the pot in order to hug Phil. “I haven’t seen you in ages, love.” Then she looked at Dan. “Oh, so this is your man? Hello, I’m Emma, Samuel’s wife.”

“I’m Dan.”

Dan expected her to offer her hand, but she hugged him instead. It was nice, just… Dan really didn’t like it when strangers touched him when he wasn’t prepared for it. Thankfully it was over quickly enough.

“Dinner will be ready soon. I hope you are hungry,” she said.

“Always,” Phil said and she smiled at him.

“I was thinking I could show you around,” Samuel said to Dan.

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

“Do you want to come with us, Phil?” Samuel asked.

“Yes,” Phil said, probably sensing Dan’s awkwardness.

The inside of the house reminded Dan a lot of his grandparents’ home. They had the same sort of interior, right down to the framed embroidered bible verses. Dan couldn’t stop himself from counting the rooms and mentally redecorating them. It would be very nice to live here sometime. He bet there was a farm shop nearby and everything.

When they returned downstairs, Emma put the food on the table.

“Dinner is ready!” She called, and they all gathered around the table.

Samuel said grace before they started eating, which Dan hoped was a habit Phil would never adopt.

The dinner was nice, both the food and the company. Dan could tell Samuel and Emma were making an effort to get to know him and make him feel comfortable, and he hoped they could tell he was trying as well. As the evening went on, Dan started to enjoy their company a lot. Once again, they reminded him a bit of his grandparents.

When Emma started to take out the dishes, Dan stood up to help.

“Sit down, please. I want to talk to you,” Samuel said and Dan sat back down. This sounded ominous. “The main reason I invited you was so that I could get to know you,” Samuel continued, “but there is something else I feel I should bring up.”

“What is it?” Phil asked, apparently as confused as Dan was.

“Your relationship,” Samuel said. “I’m very happy for you, I am, but it raises a few questions.”

“Like what?” Dan asked.

“Dating a priest, or dating as a priest,” Samuel looked at Phil, “is very different from dating other people. It’s very important to be appropriate.”

“Um…” Dan said, not sure how to respond.

“I have no business knowing your private life, but even though same-sex relationships are allowed, you are expected to be celibate,” Samuel said.

Dan gaped at him, and then at Phil, who didn’t look surprised at all.

“What? I was right?” Dan asked.

“Technically, maybe, but you thought all priests were celibate,” Phil said.

“So it’s just same-sex couples that have to be celibate?” Dan asked. Now that was a very backwards view.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. But a lot of same-sex couples don’t adhere to that rule, and I think it’s up to every couple to decide for themselves,” Samuel said. “However, you should still appear to be celibate, otherwise Phil’s license could be jeopardised. Of course, you don’t have to lie about it, but discretion is key. You should not post vulgar references to your sex life on social media, for example.”

This was all news to Dan. After they got together, Phil had explained to him that priests were allowed to be in relationships and that it was even encouraged, so that they could lead with a good example for the congregation. He had made it all sound so easy, like there was nothing stopping them.

“I didn’t know it could affect Phil’s job like that,” he said.

“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Phil said. “We live in London, after all.”

“That’s true,” Samuel agreed. “I don’t think our church will give you any trouble at all, once you introduce Dan, especially not since we have a lesbian couple.”

“Wait, ‘introduce’ me?” Dan was even more confused now.

“To the congregation,” Phil clarified. “I was going to bring it up with you later, when it was time.”

“Oh, okay,” Dan said, even if he understood absolutely nothing.

“I think you should wait though,” Samuel said. “You haven’t been together for that long, and your relationship should stabilise first. I would suggest sometime after New Year’s, perhaps?”

“I think that sounds good. We’ll talk it over,” Phil said with a nod.

“Great.” Samuel smiled at them. “Now, I think Emma said she had made rhubarb compote for dessert.”

God, Dan couldn’t wait to get out of there and ask Phil what this whole mess was, and why he hadn’t told Dan about it.

After another two hours, they said goodbye. Emma hugged Dan again, but it didn’t feel equally invasive this time. Samuel patted his shoulder and told him to take care.

The night air was cold and clear. Dan shuddered; he should’ve wrapped up in a scarf like Phil.

“So, what did you think?” Phil asked.

“About what?”

“Samuel and Emma.”

“Oh, them. I thought you meant The Talk Samuel had with us,” Dan said. He was actually a bit upset, not only because Phil had neglected to discuss it with him before, but also because Phil and Samuel had discussed _their relationship_ over his head, as if he had nothing to say. “Honestly, Phil, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I figured it was my problem,” Phil said.

“I’m pretty sure it’s _our_ problem if it’s about _our_ relationship,” Dan countered.

“I know, but I know you already dislike that I’m a priest. I didn’t want you to decide it wasn’t worth it.”

“I would never think that!” Dan said, then took a deep breath. “It would just have been nice to know that you could lose your fucking job.”

“Yeah… but don’t like, break up with me or something because you think it would be for the best,” Phil said.

“I’m not selfless enough for that,” Dan said, because he wasn’t. He’d hold on to Phil until the end of time. Or until Phil discarded him, whichever came first. “I just wish you could have prepared me or something. I want to support you in your professional life, Phil, and I can’t do that if you hide things like this from me.”

“Alright, I’m sorry. I should have told you,” Phil said. “It’s not ideal, but it’s not a disaster either. Lots of priests are in same-sex relationships without any problems. The worst thing that can happen is that I get fired, which would suck, but then I could change denominations or something. Or change career path entirely, who knows. I’ll always have my faith; being a priest was always just an extension of that.”

“But you said there was nothing else you’d rather do,” Dan pointed out.

“Yes. I love being a priest, but I can’t just become some puppet. I have to be me, all of me, and that includes you,” Phil said and Dan’s heart jumped. “If they can look the other way until the rules change, that’s great, but if they can’t, I can’t choose them.”

Dan looked at him. He was so… steady. Ready to stand his ground, even if it cost him his license. He wasn’t always like this; he had a tendency to be more anxious about taking a stand. But when he did, he was mesmerising.

“How did you find your faith? I just realised I never asked that,” Dan said, changing the subject. The air had cleared between them.

“It’s a pretty weird story actually,” Phil said. “Me and my friend watched a horror movie called _Stigmata_. And like, I didn’t know that was a real thing?”

Dan could give him several logical explanations for stigmata, like placebo or self-harm. But he didn’t say that.

“So I started researching it,” Phil continued. “And then I started reading about other miracles, like weeping statues and stuff like that. I just realised that there was this whole other reality that I had no knowledge or experience of. The more I read about it, the more the existence of God made sense to me.”

Dan saw Phil glancing up at the stars, like he was looking for God up there.

“So you just started to believe in God because it was logical?” Dan asked.

“No. I started going to church. I’m gonna be honest; I was sceptical at first. I decided it wasn’t for me but something just pulled me back, and I started going more. I was scared to believe though…”

“Scared?”

“Like I said; it’s like a whole new world. And I started to like, feel it inside of me, you know? It’s difficult to describe,” Phil said.

“Give it a try,” Dan suggested and kicked a wayward rock on the ground.

“It’s like. Um. Like being in love, but more familiar, even if it was new. It felt like it came from inside of me, from some place in my heart I didn’t even know I had. It sounds ridiculous, I know.”

Dan didn’t think it sounded ridiculous. For him, the ‘relationship’ he’d had with God before leaving church had been distant, something that was expected of him, with no real impact on him. It was the people around him that had had an impact on him. He didn’t exactly know what he had thought of Phil’s relationship with God; he’d been more concerned about Phil being a priest and affiliated with the church. But hearing Phil talk about God like this, on an emotional level, made his life choices seem a bit more sensible.

“When did you stop being scared then?”

Phil was silent for a few moments, glancing up at the stars again.

“I had a friend who passed away very suddenly,” he started. “And the whole world just stopped making sense. I don’t remember much of that time, I just remember being in this… haze. That’s when I started talking to God. It didn’t make things better, really, but it was like I could feel His presence. Like He was suffering together with me.”

Dan didn’t know what to say. He’d always been bad at handling heavy situations like this. But maybe he didn’t need to say anything; he reached out and took Phil’s hand. Phil squeezed his.

Phil’s faith pervaded his whole life, even if Dan didn’t always notice it. But it was obvious; he had said he even believed God brought them together. Faith didn’t exist in a vacuum, as an abstract concept. It was a whole different layer to reality, like Phil had said. And it was something they wouldn’t be able to share. Not that partners had to share everything, but it wasn’t like religion was just a hobby. From experience, he knew faith was one of those things believers valued highly in a partner. Phil thought about their future together, just like Dan did. But would he really be able to accept Dan’s scepticism in the long run?

“Does it really not bother you that I don’t believe?” Dan asked.

“I’ve told you it doesn’t bother me. Why would it?” Phil answered.

“Well, it’s different now. We’re together now, that’s a whole different thing. Every Christian person I know wants a Christian partner, and I will probably never convert.”

“That doesn’t matter to me, Dan. I know there’s a lot of pressure on Christian couples to share their faith with each other, but I don’t think you have to do that. I don’t even know if I would want that. So as long as you respect that I believe, I will respect that you don’t believe,” Phil said.

“But what about your congregation?”

“What about them?”

“Aren’t you supposed to set an example or something?” Dan asked.

“Then I will set the example on how to love thy atheist neighbour or something. I don’t know, Dan. I think you’re overthinking again.”

“Right, yeah. I do have a certain tendency. I’m just worried that you’re gonna wake up one day and feel spiritually malnourished or whatever,” Dan told him.

“I’ve managed just fine without a religious partner until now, I’m sure I will manage in the future too. Besides, ever since I met you I’ve felt closer to God. I see Him very clearly in the love I have for you,” Phil said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Phil said and squeezed his hand again.

***

Dan had always known that communication was the key to a good relationship, but he hadn’t expected to experience it himself. It was not that he and Phil had had a bad relationship, far from it. It had been a dream since it started, and continued to be. But he hadn’t known that Phil was intentionally holding back part of his life for Dan’s benefit. He thought his faith bothered him, or that he’d rather have it be an uncomfortable truth between them. Sure, they had talked about it many times, but only when Dan asked about it. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Phil was holding back; he had figured that Phil didn’t want to talk about it with someone who didn’t believe. He was wrong. Phil had a deep, genuine interest in all aspects of religion, and wanted to talk about it. Phil had just thought that Dan didn’t want to listen. And that’s where Phil was wrong.

Neither one of them was particularly confrontational, so many things had went unsaid between them, which was stupid because every time a problem surfaced they had an easy time talking about it and working it out.

Now, after talking about their relationship as something that might affect Phil’s life on a professional level, and also discussing Phil’s faith on an emotional level, it was plain to see that Phil had been holding back. Nowadays, Phil did his research in bed with Dan beside him, or asked Dan’s opinion on spiritual matters, or randomly told him facts about the Bible or the history of the Church. And Dan’s apartment was littered with his notes for sermons, which was annoying and endearing at the same time. Dan sneak-read them sometimes.

Today, they were having something of a lazy day, seeing as they both worked from home and could decide when to work and when to relax. Dan had decided to relax and was playing the piano while Phil was sitting on the floor, leaned against the couch, and writing a sermon.

Dan stopped playing and turned to look at him. His glasses were slightly askew, and his long, elegant fingers were gripping the pen too tightly as he was writing something with a very intense expression on his face. Who knew what it was this time. Then, his grip on the pen loosened and he glanced up at Dan.

“Can you play _Ave Maria_?” He asked.

He requested it a lot when Dan was playing. It had become something of a favourite for Dan too, as it reminded him of the night they finally got together.

Dan turned back to the piano and started playing. He looked at his own fingers as he played. His fingers that Phil loved to kiss and suck on and play with. He played a bit faster than usual to reach the end of the song, then he turned around again. Now Phil had stuck the top of the pen in his mouth as he considered a line he’d written.

“Come on,” Dan said and stood up, offering his hand to Phil. “Let’s take a break. I need some Northern Sweetness.”

Phil laughed, put his notes aside and took Dan’s hand, standing up. Dan led him to his bedroom and undressed him slowly, lazily. He splayed Phil out on the bed, his arms out on either side of him, looking like Christ on the cross. Which was inappropriate to think of; was he developing a religious kink or something?

Phil just lay there without a care for the flaws he was exposing. Maybe he really didn’t care, or he didn’t see them as flaws. Dan could easily identify Phil’s flaws, but he loved every bit of extra skin and every awkward angle. Every time he noticed a new imperfection, his heart swelled with love. He loved Phil’s humanity more than he loved his holiness.

Phil’s chest hair felt both soft and scratchy under his hands. When Dan graced his nipples, Phil’s breath hitched. Dan bent down his head and kissed them, and Phil’s breaths turned deeper, louder. He started sucking on one and pinched the other with his hand, and a moan broke from Phil’s throat. Dan moved his mouth southwards to try to coax more noises from his boyfriend.

He sucked Phil while fingering him open, until Phil was trembling under him, pushing back against his fingers, begging him.

“Please, Dan,” he moaned.

Dan pulled his fingers out and replaced them with his hard cock. He had barely just gotten the head in when Phil wrapped his legs around him and tried to push him in deeper. Fuck, he loved the feeling of Phil around him, all warm and velvety.

“Come on Dan, move,” Phil whined.

“Give me a moment,” Dan said, trying to compose himself.

Phil was impatient and tried to fuck himself on Dan’s cock. He groaned and grabbed Phil’s hips, holding him down and slamming into him.

“Is this what you want?” He asked. “Hm?”

“Yes,” Phil gasped.

Alright, then that’s what he was getting. Dan thrusted into Phil with a punishing pace, as hard as he could. He tried to focus on making Phil feel good, but his own pleasure was building up fast, and soon enough he wasn’t sure he kept the fast pace because Phil wanted it or because he himself needed it.

He was mouthing at Phil’s neck when Phil said,

“Not too high, my collar has to cover it.”

And god fucking dammit, he was done for. His hips stuttered as he came, deep inside Phil. He reached between them and jerked Phil off.

Afterwards, Dan felt sleepy and crawled beneath the covers, trying to take Phil with him.

“I can’t,” Phil said and kissed the top of his head. “I have to keep working on my sermon.”

“Is it really that important?” Dan asked. He really wanted to cuddle.

“Yes, otherwise I would not leave you naked in a bed.”

Phil retrieved his glasses from the bedside table, then quickly dressed again before leaving the room. That was his choice; Dan was taking a nap.

When he woke up, he looked at the time on his phone; he’d been asleep for two hours. He was starting to get hungry. He walked back to the lounge, where Phil was sitting among scattered papers. Phil’s work ethic was good, but Dan had never seen him quite this focused. He sat down next to him.

“Richard is visiting this weekend,” Phil explained before Dan had even asked. Ah, his old mentor. “I want to impress him. I mean, he’s heard me preach lots of times before, but I still get nervous.”

“Would you like me to come? Like, if it would make you less nervous,” Dan asked.

Phil looked at him.

“You would do that?”

“Of course. But maybe I shouldn’t, if we’re keeping this whole thing lowkey.”

“It’s not like, a secret,” Phil pointed out. “You can still attend church. I mean, if you want to.”

“Yeah? Then I’m coming. Who knows, maybe it will even be better if the people in your church recognises me when New Year’s come around,” Dan said.

Phil beamed at him before picking up his hand and kissing it.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too.”

***

Being back in the church this time was different. Dan was still slightly uncomfortable, and also a bit paranoid that someone would point at him and yell “we all know you’re fucking Father Lester!” or something. But no one did. He received a few curious glances, but not more so than the first time he’d been there.

He sat in the front, where Phil could easily spot him if he became nervous. Which, Dan wasn’t sure that would help. Phil was too embarrassed to even practise his sermon in front of Dan.

Dan looked around quickly, tried to spot Richard. Phil had shown him pictures of his mentor, so that he would know what he looked like. Richard was surprisingly young. Well, he wasn’t that young, probably in his forties, but Dan had expected someone closer to Samuel’s age. Although Phil had told him Samuel had been Richard’s mentor. It was all very Jedi-esque.

The sermon started. He could hear that Phil was nervous and wondered if the others noticed it too. But it was a good sermon, he could tell that Phil had been working hard on it. It centred around the subject of acceptance and tolerance, even to those who were different. There was even a part where Phil boldly brought up how Jesus’ message had been corrupted through the ages, and how parts of the Church still operated on these misinterpretations.

“Tradition is important,” he said, “but how can we preach about how Jesus is alive and present in our lives today if we only look to the past?”

Dan’s heart beat faster at the words, and was willing to bet Phil’s heart beat at a matching pace. Maybe the Church really could be changed from the inside. A slow process, yes, but not impossible. Definitely not impossible with people like Phil close to the cause.

The last time, and the only time, he’d heard Phil preach before, he’d been surprised at how well Phil fit the role. But now it wasn’t weird at all to see him up there at the pulpit. Like sure, it was a little weird to think about the fact that the same tongue that was pronouncing prayers and blessings had been up his ass just last night, that was unavoidable (and not something he should think about in church, goddammit). But apart from still getting used to merging the idea of ‘Phil’ and ‘boyfriend’ and ‘priest’ into one, it wasn’t weird. Phil fit the role, and Dan liked that he did. The future might not offer more smooth sailing than the past, but Dan was 100% certain that he and Phil would face it together, supporting each other. And that made him feel safe.

After the sermon had ended, Dan expected people to be lining up to speak with Phil and that it would take an eternity to wait his turn, but Phil himself started to make his way through the crowd, towards Richard. Dan watched as the two men embraced. It looked quite comical, since Richard was a short, stocky man and Phil towered over him with at least ten centimetres. They talked for a while. Richard put his hand on Phil’s arm and told him something, probably praising him for the sermon, because Phil looked pleased.

Then, Phil turned, his eyes spotting Dan immediately, and waved him over.

“Richard, this is Dan,” Phil said when Dan came to stand next to him.

Richard offered him his hand and Dan shook it.

“Nice to meet you. Phil has told me all about you,” Richard said.

“He’s told me a lot about you too,” Dan said.

“I’m very happy for you two,” Richard said, then he looked around. “Although I’ve been told we are not to discuss it here.”

“Not right now,” Phil confirmed.

“Well, best of luck to you when the time comes.”

They talked for a bit more. Dan was painfully aware of the fact that he was the third wheel. Richard was nice and all, but he and Phil were constantly slipping into conversation Dan couldn’t follow. Usually, it was him and Phil who did that, which he loved, but now that he was the one left out, he hated it.

“I should go,” Dan said when there was a lull in conversation. “I have some stuff to do.”

“It was good to meet you,” Richard said and patted his arm.

“You too.” Dan turned to Phil. “See you at home later?”

“Yeah, of course. Richard and I are going over to Samuel’s house for dinner, but I’ll be home after that. Thank you for coming.”

“No problem. It was nice, actually,” Dan said with a smile.

It was late when Phil came home. He looked tired, but happy.

“Hi,” he said and cuddled up to Dan on the couch.

“Hi. How was the dinner?” Dan asked and immediately paused Mario Kart to wrap his arms around Phil.

“Great. I haven’t seen Richard in months, so it was good to catch up. I mean, we talk on the phone a lot, but it’s different to sit down and just hang out,” Phil said. “I felt a little bit like a kid with my two parents though. They’re both so protective of me.”

“Aww, baby Philly,” Dan cooed and Phil snorted.

“Yeah. It doesn’t matter if I’m thirty, they’ll always see me as the anxious postulant I was.” He took Dan’s hand and played with his fingers. “So, now you’ve met Richard.”

“Yep.”

“And Samuel. And my friends. And Martyn. Maybe you should meet my parents soon?”

“Um, uh, yeah,” Dan stuttered, surprised. “That would be nice. You should meet my parents too.”

Phil smiled up at him.

“My mum is gonna love you. She will probably try to adopt you or something,” Phil said and Dan laughed.

He really hoped Phil’s parents would like him, but if they were anything like Phil and Martyn, they’d probably get along. And his own parents would probably like Phil too; Phil was a sweetheart, if only a bit weird. But to be fair, his parents thought he was weird, they’d probably just think he found the perfect match, which Dan agreed with.

***

Dan looked at himself in the mirror. White silky lingerie was hugging his hips and thighs. He had on a pair of panties and a garter belt that held up a pair of sheer thigh-highs. He couldn’t quite decide if he looked ridiculous or sexy. He’d like to think it was sexy, but he felt embarrassed too. He’d tried on lingerie before, but never with the intention of someone else seeing him in them. But now, the plan was to surprise Phil. They were celebrating their two-month anniversary tonight, Phil knew that, but Dan hadn’t given him any details. It felt longer than two months, but then again, they had acted like a couple before they were.

Dan turned and glanced at his behind. Yes, definitely both ridiculous and sexy. If his parents ever saw him like this they’d probably disown him or something.

He hoped Phil would like it. Phil always liked it when Dan played up his “feminine” side, if such a thing existed. He liked it when Dan wore nail polish or makeup. So when it came to their anniversary, Dan had gone out on a limb.

Dan glanced at the time on his phone. Phil would be home in ten minutes or so. How would he do this? Drape himself seductively on the bed? Lean against the doorframe so that Phil would see him the moment he entered his apartment?

Dan didn’t have much time to decide as he heard a key turn in the lock. Phil was early. Fuck, he was barely prepared. He went over to the bed and lay down, propping himself up on his side.

“Dan?” Phil called from the hallway.

“In here!” Dan called back.

He should be more nervous than he was, in case Phil wasn’t actually into this. But Dan was almost certain he was.

Phil entered the room and stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted Dan. His eyes travelled over Dan’s body, taking it all in.

“Dear God,” he said.

Dan smirked.

“You like it?”

“You know I do.”

Phil walked closer to the bed, his cassock swishing around him. What a pair they were; Phil in his cassock, Dan in his lingerie. Maybe Dan wasn’t the only one who could play dress up.

When Phil reached for the top button of his cassock, Dan sat up on his knees and stopped him.

“Maybe you could keep this on?”

That was more of a risqué question.

“You want that?” Phil asked.

“Yes,” Dan said, fingering at Phil’s collar. Just the thought made his panties feel tighter. “If you don’t mind.”

He started unbuttoning Phil’s cassock from the bottom instead.

“I don’t,” Phil said.

Maybe the thought turned him on too. Dan only unbuttoned the cassock enough for Phil to take out his cock. Phil pulled his trousers and underwear off, stepping out of them. Then he sat down on the bed next to Dan.

“Come here then,” Phil said.

Dan crawled into his lap, straddling him. He felt Phil’s cock poking his ass. The rough texture of the cassock scratched against his skin, not only where he was bare but he could feel it through his thigh-highs too.

Phil caressed his thighs and ass, at first careful, then pressing his palms into him.

“I love you like this,” he told Dan.

“I love you like this too, Father,” Dan teased, but felt how Phil grew even harder under him. “Oh, you like that, being called Father?”

“Shut up,” Phil said and grabbed his hair, pulling him into a dirty kiss.

Dan kissed him back with equal force, licking into Phil’s mouth while wiggling around in his lap until Phil groaned and pushed him off.

“You’re teasing me, Howell,” he growled and attacked Dan’s panties. “Get these off now.”

“On the side,” Dan instructed him.

The panties were tied together with knots at the sides so that they could be easily taken off without having to remove the garter belt. Dan had thought ahead.

Phil pulled at the knot, but it didn’t loosen up. For a moment, Dan had a horrible flashback to their first time when his jeans had gotten stuck. Please, no. Then, Phil pulled harder and the knot came undone. He did the same thing on the other side, then discarded the panties.

Phil looked at him hungrily, hands back to caressing Dan’s legs. Up and down, up and down, feeling the thigh-highs. But every time he came close to Dan’s hard cock, he pulled his hands away again.

“I want you to come without being touched,” Phil told him sternly. “Keep your hands at the headboard.”

“How arrogant of you, Fath– ghhh.”

Dan was interrupted by Phil sticking his fingers in his mouth.

“Be quiet, please. And suck,” Phil told him.

Fuck. Yes. Dan did as he was told, generously coating Phil’s fingers with saliva. Phil pulled his fingers out of Dan’s mouth and placed them at his hole instead. He inserted one finger, then pushed at Dan’s leg.

“Keep your legs up so that I can see properly,” Phil told him.

God, he was so assertive. Dan pulled his knees up, giving Phil full view of his ass. Phil hummed approvingly. Then he stuck another finger in before Dan had barely gotten used to the first one.

“Is this okay?” Phil asked.

“Yes, just use some lube too, maybe,” Dan said.

Phil reached with his free hand for the lube he kept in his bedside drawer. Then he poured some over Dan’s hole as he moved his fingers in and out, working the lube in. He twisted his fingers, searching for Dan’s sweet spot. Dan let out a moan when he reached it and he pressed down on it in earnest. Fucking hell, he was really out to get him today.

Phil inserted a third finger and Dan thrust back against his fingers, desperate for more. Just seeing Phil above him, still dressed in his cassock, was enough for him to go crazy. He needed Phil inside of him soon or he’d come from the sight alone. Fuck, Phil was so attractive like this. He shouldn’t be, but he was.

“Please, Phil,” Dan begged.

“What was that?” Phil asked.

“Please, Phil,” Dan repeated.

“No. Not Phil,” Phil reminded him.

Oh. Damn.

“Please, Father,” Dan said instead and Phil smirked.

“Good boy,” he said and took his fingers out.

Phil lubed his cock, then lined up at Dan’s gaping, desperate hole. He rubbed the head of his cock against it, then let it slip in slowly.

“Ahhh, fuck,” Dan moaned.

Phil pushed in deeper, filling him completely, then braced his hand against Dan’s thigh as he started moving. First slowly, then faster, harder.

Dan was desperate to touch himself, or Phil, or something. His hands were itching with the urge, but he obediently kept them at the headboard like Phil had told him. This was not a position he had imagined himself in a year ago; on his back with a priest thrusting into him.

Phil grabbed his calf and held his leg up higher so that he could fuck him from a better angle. And God, did he find a better angle. With every thrust he slammed into Dan’s prostate, making him gasp and moan.

“Dear fucking lord. Touch me, Father, please,” Dan whined. His cock was almost painfully hard, leaking precum and begging for attention.

“No, I want you to come from only this,” Phil said, fucking him even faster.

If Phil would just touch him he’d come in half a fricking microsecond, but no, Phil was determined to prolong this absolute torture.

Phil fucked him harder, until Dan thought his entire ass was going numb. He felt on the verge of exploding. Or crying. This was bliss, surely this was heaven. It was so good, too much and too little at the same time.

“Fuck, Dan, you’re so pretty,” Phil moaned. “I’m close. Will you be a good boy and come with me?”

“Yes, fuck,” Dan said then gasped as Phil somehow sped up even more, pushing further in, hips stuttering. Phil’s bangs were hanging into his face, and he looked completely wicked. A wicked priest, fucking men in lingerie as soon as he came home from church. Fuck.

“Yes, Father, yes, yes,” Dan chanted, making Phil groan and spill deep inside of him at the same time that his own untouched cock spurted come all over Phil’s black cassock.

They took a moment to just breathe and calm down before Phil carefully pulled out and lay down next to him.

“Shit… I didn’t even know I had that kink,” Phil said.

“I suspected I had it,” Dan confessed. “I don’t know, man, you’re just really hot when you’re in priest mode.”

“You think so?” Phil asked, looking at him.

“Yes. Every time I visit your church I have to restrain myself.”

Phil laughed. Then he touched his stained cassock.

“Ugh…” he said. “I’m not sure how I’m gonna explain this at the drycleaner’s.”

Now it was Dan’s turn to laugh. He hadn’t really thought that far ahead.

“That has to be sacrilege or something,” he said. “I’m pretty sure everything we just did is sacrilege. You’re gonna need cilice and flagellation to repent for that.”

“Probably. What about you? Are you just getting off the hook?” Phil asked.

“No, I should repent too. Any suggestions, Father?” Dan teased, and now Phil blushed.

“Maybe you could wear this more often,” Phil said and touched Dan’s garter belt-clad hip. “You know, to repent.”

“To repent. Of course,” Dan agreed with a smirk.

***

The first of December, Dan woke up to some strange shuffling sound. He turned over to ask Phil what it was, but Phil was no longer next to him. Which probably meant Phil was the one causing the noises.

Dan left the warmth of Phil’s bed. The floor was almost painfully cold against his soles. He quickly snatched some mismatched socks off of Phil’s floor (where was his own?) and put them on, together with the jumper and sweatpants he’d discarded on the floor the previous night. Then, he padded out into the lounge.

The first thing he saw was lots of cardboard boxes, some on the floor, some on the coffee table. Then, he saw Phil on the other side of the room, pushing a giant box towards the other boxes. It was the box that made the shuffling noise as it slid slowly across the floor.

“Phil, what are you doing?” Dan asked and Phil’s head snapped up. He was flushed pink.

“Oh, I didn’t notice you came in. Gave me a heart attack,” he huffed. “Good morning.”

“What’s all this?” Dan asked, gesturing to the boxes.

“Christmas decorations,” Phil said.

“Already?”

“Yes! I’ve wanted to put them up since forever, so I’m doing it as soon as possible. And you’re helping me,” Phil said.

“Oh, am I?”

“Otherwise you’ll get on Santa’s naughty list.”

“Oh dear, I don’t want that. Guess I’ll have to help you then,” Dan said and Phil grinned.

After Dan had eaten breakfast with Phil sitting across the table playing footsie with him, he opened one of the smaller boxes.

“Alright, let’s see what kind of crap you have in here.”

Dan had expected angels or other Christian decorations from a priest, but except for a Nativity Scene, Phil had mostly Santa or reindeer ornaments and glitter in all kinds of colours.

“Are we really supposed to put all of it up?” Dan asked when almost every surface in Phil’s apartment was covered. Even the row of cacti on the windowsill had small Santa hats on top of each one.

“Yes!” Phil said and looked like a child on Christmas Day with his shining eyes. He hadn’t been joking when he said he loved Christmas.

Dan walked over to where Phil was assembling the Nativity Scene in his bookcase. It looked beautiful enough, and Dan was just about to leave him to it when he spotted something orange amongst the figurines; a plastic giraffe.

“Phil, no,” he said and pointed at the giraffe.

“It was lonely,” Phil said and placed the last sheep beside the giraffe.

“There were no giraffes in Bethlehem,” Dan pointed out.

“Maybe it arrived with the Magi.”

“Why would they bring a–“

“Well, we can’t exclude it now; it’s Christmas,” Phil said with finality, and when Dan rolled his eyes he laughed. “Come on, help me with the Christmas tree.”

Putting together and decorating the Christmas tree took longer than Dan expected. When it was finally done, his stomach was rumbling and Phil made them dinner. Daylight had already fled even though it wasn’t terribly late. Although he’d decorated Phil’s entire apartment, Dan felt like he had done nothing all day. Technically, it was true since he hadn’t done anything useful. Like update his blog; he’d drawn a new design yesterday but he hadn’t photographed or edited it yet. It was difficult to be productive sometimes when Phil was so distracting.

“I’m gonna go upstairs and work a little,” Dan said and kissed Phil’s cheek.

“Okay. Thanks for helping me decorate.”

Stepping into his own apartment was anticlimactic; not a single light was on and it was completely festively void. With a sigh, he turned on the lights and went to his room to start working. After doing the bare minimum, he couldn’t muster the focus to do anything else. He kept thinking about how Phil was downstairs with a lit Christmas tree and that they could be cuddling under a blanket right now if he wanted to.

Dan walked over to his closet and took out a couple of jumpers, t-shirts, jeans, underwear, and dumped it all on his bed. While walking around his apartment and turning all the lights off again, he remembered Phil’s Christmas present he’d hidden in the drawer under his bed after wrapping it. After some consideration, he added it to his pile on the bed too. It was a bright red t-shirt he’d found online with Buffy Summers styled as the Virgin Mary and with the text _“Our Lady of Sunnydale”_. As soon as he saw it he knew Phil would love it.

When he was done, he gathered all four corners of his duvet together and hoisted the make-shift package on his back. Then he left his dark apartment behind again and went downstairs.

Phil was sitting on his couch under a blanket with his laptop in his lap.

“Are you moving in or something?” He asked, amused, when he saw Dan coming through the door.

“For a while,” Dan said and walked past him into the bedroom, where he dumped his bundle on Phil’s bed.

He retrieved the present, a bit crumpled now, and went back into the lounge.

“What’s that?” Phil asked, sitting up a bit straighter, clearly interested.

“Your Christmas present,” Dan said and placed it under the tree.

“We’re not supposed to exchange them yet,” Phil pointed out.

“I know. I just want it to tempt you.”

“… You are definitely getting on Santa’s naughty list,” Phil said.

Dan laughed and walked over to Phil. He lifted the blanked and sat down before draping it across his legs.

“Let’s watch something,” he suggested.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Christmas movies? I think it’s allowed now, if Christmas decorations are,” Dan said.

He saw Phil’s eyes light up at the prospect. Dan liked Christmas, but he had not been _that_ excited about it in years. Although Phil’s festive mood was contagious. Or maybe it was just that being with Phil as Christmas was nearing was more festive. It was new, yes, but he recognised the feeling of homecoming that every Christmas song spoke about. Here, with Phil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is! The end! I hope you enjoyed this fic, if you did you can nominate it to the [Phanfic Awards](http://phanficawards.tumblr.com/post/167191119045/phanfic-awards-2017-nominations) if you want :)  
> Also I made a [fic playlist on spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/jonfanny/playlist/6DxD3XrggbBS0VnuMe5yqi) if you want to have a listen.  
> As always, just hit me up on tumblr if you want to talk about the fic or dnp or anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on tumblr as [imsorryimlate,](http://imsorryimlate.tumblr.com) come say hi! :D


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